


Growing Pains

by archdemonblood



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Blue Hawke, Drama, Family, M/M, Mage Hawke - Freeform, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:25:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 65,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6200524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archdemonblood/pseuds/archdemonblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris arrives in Kirkwall with a child, and struggles to balance his desire for revenge and safety and his feelings for Hawke with the needs of a child with whom he has a very complicated, if loving, relationship. Written in response to this (http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/15999.html?thread=61070207#t61070207) prompt. Note that, with permission from the OP, the child is older than the prompt requested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1 - Part 1

Title: Growing Pains  
Summary: Fenris arrives in Kirkwall with a child, and struggles to balance his desire for revenge and safety and his feelings for Hawke with the needs of a child with whom he has a very complicated, if loving, relationship. Written in response to this (http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/15999.html?thread=61070207#t61070207) prompt. Note that the child is older than the prompt requested.  
Rating: 18+  
Main Pairing[s]: Hawke/Fenris,  
Trigger Warnings: child abuse, child endangerment, traumatized children, forced pregnancy, forced temporary alternations to primary and secondary sexual characteristics, murder, self-harm, rape, misdirected transphobia, parents lying to their children about their genetic histories, forced rape reveal, racialized self-hatred in multiracial children, kidnapping, slavery, death, misogyny.  
Contains: male Hawke, mage Hawke, pro-mage Hawke, happy ending, Inquisition spoilers, Trespasser spoilers.  
Author's Notes: I apologize for the lack of explanations in this section, but I prefer to stick to canon as much as possible, and that means that Fenris isn't going to be comfortable opening up to Hawke about all of this until Act 2. For now, all I can offer you is a promise that the 'how' and the 'why' of Danarius impregnating Fenris and Fenris running away with the child will be addressed later—the scene is already written, in fact!

~*~

Hawke was not yet sure what to make of Fenris. The man seemed like he’d be a valuable ally, for all that he’d made his distrust of mages clear, and he had offered his services. He'd said he’d watch them closely. Hawke wondered what that meant he’d do if in his watching he saw something he didn’t like.

Hawke liked to think of himself as a very ethical person. His run as a smuggler had been short-lived and necessary, and now he was just a guy trying to get his family out of Lowtown. His father had raised him to be caring and open-minded. Hawke wasn't afraid of being watched by someone who wasn't actively malevolent. Surely the help would be more than worth a little scrutiny, and Fenris was a runaway slave, an elf on his own in a city that chewed people up and spit them back out even when they _didn’t_ have everything working against them. He needed a friend perhaps even more than Hawke did. 

Besides, Fenris was pretty. 

Hawke didn’t think it would hurt to check in on him, anyway. They’d met about a week ago, which was long enough that Hawke didn’t think he’d scare Fenris away.

His knock on the front door went unanswered.

He tried the handle. It was unlocked. He opened it, and immediately called out “Fenris? It’s Hawke!” 

That echoed throughout the house, and the answer echoed back quickly: “I’m in the back bedroom. Let yourself in.” 

Hawke did as he was invited to, and found Fenris in the back room nursing a bottle of wine, which was still more than half full. 

Fenris gestured to a seat by the fireplace, and Hawke took it. 

“Agreggio Pavalli,” Fenris said. 

“Antivan,” Hawke said, “Isn’t it?” 

Fenris shrugged. “I believe so. There are six bottles in the cellar. Danarius used to have me pour it for his guests.” While Hawke was still trying to figure out how to respond to that, Fenris said, “My appearance intimidated them, he said, which he enjoyed.” 

Hawke looked Fenris over and smiled. “I can’t imagine why they would be put off.” He could, of course. He’d seen Fenris reach right through a man’s chest just a few days ago and yank out his heart. Hawke wasn’t intimidated, though, and he wanted Fenris to know that. 

Fenris blinked at Hawke a few times. “You say what’s on your mind. I’ll give you that.” Fenris looked down at the wine bottle in his hand, and then at the wall to his left, and Hawke saw the thought flash through Fenris’ mind. Fenris resisted the impulse, however, and instead carefully set the battle down on a wooden bench. He sat down beside it, but did not touch it again. 

“You've cleaned the place up a little,” Hawke commented.

Fenris shrugged. “I had to make it liveable. I hope to be here for a while.” Fenris was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Tell me, have you never wanted to return to Ferelden?”

Hawke felt a pang in his chest at the memory of all that he'd lost. “I grew up in Ferelden. It will always be my home.” 

“The Blight is over,” Fenris pointed out. “You could rebuild what you lost. Do you truly not want to?”

It wasn’t really that simple, though. Hawke could bore Fenris for hours with talk of his family’s financial troubles, of Templars keeping a close eye on the docks, of Gamlen’s suspicious behavior whenever someone brought up the will, and of the feeling that Hawke and his mother and brother all seemed to share, though they had never voiced it, that they could _never_ return to Lothering without Bethany. Instead, Hawke said, “My mother came from Kirkwall. Our heritage is here.” 

Fenris considered this for a moment. It seemed to satisfy him. “Having a place where you can put down roots. I understand.”

There was a thud from one of the back rooms. Fenris’ eyes widened and he jumped up immediately and rushed from the room. Hawke grabbed his staff and ran out of the room behind him before realizing that Fenris hadn’t grabbed his sword.

A child’s crying echoed through the mansion.

Fenris didn’t even glance at any other room on his way up a back staircase and down to the last bedroom on the right. Once he’d entered the room, he scanned it, located the crying child in the northeastern corner, and went to him.

“Cato,” Fenris said, kneeling down by the child, “what happened?”

The child pointed to the corner of the rug he was sitting on. The corner was flipped up and the rug had a large wrinkle it. “I slipped on the rug,” Cato sobbed. “I hurt my knee and--” another sob, “--I broke Horsie!”

Fenris was already rolling up the child’s trousers on the offered leg when the child finished. There was no blood, but the bruise was impressive. 

Fenris frowned at the child sympathetically. “I’m sorry you’re in pain, Cato,” he said softly. “This injury is quite survivable, however. You’ll be okay.” He opened his arms. “Would you like a hug?”

“Yes, Fenris,” Cato said. He threw himself into Fenris’ open arms. They cuddled for ten seconds or so, but then Cato broke away and snatched the wooden horse up from the floor.

“Horsie broke,” he said again, sniffling, though the tears had stopped. 

Fenris took the toy and examined it. The horse’s front left leg, which was raised as if the horse were walking, had been snapped clean off. Fenris rubbed his thumb over the jagged edge. “Horsie will be alright,” Fenris said, smiling at the child. “This too is survivable, I promise. I will file off this edge so that it’s not sharp, and he will learn to live with three legs.” 

“Or,” Hawke said, feeling like he was intruding and at least wanting to be useful, “you can hand me the pieces.” 

Fenris shrugged and handed Horsie over. Cato looked around the floor, found the broken leg, and passed it up to Hawke. 

Hawke held the two pieces together for a moment, and then they glowed. They fused back together, and Hawke handed them back to Cato. 

“Thank you!” Cato cried, jumping up to give Hawke a hug, his injured knee entirely forgotten. 

“Not a problem,” Hawke said. “It was just basic primal magic.”

“I love primal magic!” Cato said, squeezing Hawke. 

He didn’t see how Fenris twitched. 

Cato released Hawke to turn and show Fenris the repaired toy. “Look! Your friend fixed Horsie!” Then he stopped and frowned. “Who is your friend?” 

“Cato, this is Hawke,” Fenris said. “Hawke, this is Cato.”

The frown remained in place. “You’re not gonna kill him, right, Fenris?”

Hawke shifted a little. 

“I am not going to kill him,” Fenris said, smiling awkwardly at Hawke.

Hawke returned the smile with equal discomfort.

“You promise?” Cato persisted. 

“I promise.”

Cato relaxed.

“It’s nice to meet you, Cato,” Hawke said, mostly to break the silence. He held his hand out to the child. 

Cato, who had hugged Hawke just a moment ago, stepped away from Hawke’s hand and looked at it with distrust. 

He looked like he was about six years old. He had black curls that reached his shoulders and bright green eyes. His baggy trousers and long-sleeved shirt made him look even more slender for a human of his age than he probably actually was, but he was certainly skinny. He did not appear malnourished, though, so Hawke was unconcerned.

“Fenris,” Hawke said, forcing a smile, “if we could finish our conversation in the other room...?” 

“Of course,” Fenris said, standing. He looked back at Cato. “Be careful of the rug, for now. I’ll move it out of this room later.”

Cato nodded. “Okay.”

Fenris followed Hawke back into the room where they had began their conversation, and spoke before Hawke could: “Thank you for that,” he said. “It meant more to him than I think you realize. Cato only has one toy.” Fenris smiled humorlessly. “I found Horsie on the side of a road. I cleaned it up and gave it to him, and he hasn’t put it down since. He spent most of his life playing with rocks and sticks.”

Hawke nodded, not really listening.

Hawke was less concerned than he perhaps ought to have been about why the child made Fenris promise not to kill Hawke. If Fenris intended to kill Hawke, he surely would have already tried. Hawke couldn’t imagine _why_ Fenris would kill him, anyway. No one stood to gain anything from killing Hawke; he was a penniless apostate. If slavers dogged Fenris the way he claimed they did, then Cato might have seen Fenris kill people before, and a child would no doubt have trouble understanding the nuances of that situation. 

Hawke could remember one occasion--just one, when the twins were far too little to remember--when a lone Templar had come knocking at their door, and there had been no running from him, no escape routes, except into the dark and wild forest on a cold night. Hawke’s father told Hawke and to go into the bedroom, where the twins were fast asleep and his mother was knitting. Hawke didn’t want to go, but he went, because his father’s eyes allowed for no argument. His mother wasn’t knitting; she’d heard the knock and stopped cold. They both sat there, frozen, staring at each other. Hawke heard a single scream, and then a thud, and a minute later, Hawke’s father walked into the room with the silverware sticking out of his pockets. He looked at Hawke, apparently just to confirm that he was there, and Hawke saw relief flash on his father’s face before he turned to Hawke’s mother. “We need to go. _Now_. We don’t have time to pack, just grab what’s valuable.” His mother didn’t ask questions. Hawke and his parents pulled on their coats, the twins were wrapped up tightly in blankets and lifted into their parents’ arms, and Hawke was told to carry some food and what little jewelry his mother had left. They left the house forever in less than five minutes. Hawke’s father told him not to look down as they left. “Just keep your eyes on me.” Hawke did as he was told. He’d always wondered what would he would have seen if he hadn’t. 

Hawke understood what life on the run was like, for both adults and children. That was not his concern.

He tried not to sound too accusing when he started to ease into his actual concern: “I didn’t realize you were traveling with a child.” 

“At the moment, I am not.”

Hawke raised an eyebrow. 

“I am not traveling at all.” Fenris smirked. “I told you, I intend to remain here.”

“With a child? Isn’t that dangerous if Danarius comes for you?”

“Danarius will not hurt Cato,” Fenris said, sounding completely confident of the fact. “Previous groups of slavers have mentioned explicit instructions not to hurt the child. I’m certain all subsequent groups will have similar instructions, and Danarius won't change his mind and hurt Cato if he comes himself.”

Hawke’s eyebrow crept even higher. “That child is human,” he said, still struggling to keep his voice neutral. 

“Apparently,” Fenris said, with equal forced neutrality.

“And he calls you by your name.”

“So he does.” 

Hawke thought carefully about how he wanted to handle this. In the most casual tone he could manage, he said, “You’re not his father, then?”

Fenris sucked in a breath that sounded like a hiss. “No,” he said through clenched teeth.

Hawke had suspected as much. “Who _is_ his father?” 

It was probably nothing. Yet, something about this was making Hawke uneasy. Why was Fenris so uncomfortable? Why hadn’t Fenris told him about the child from the beginning?

Fenris looked away. “I would not say he has ever had proper parents.”

“ _Fenris_ ,” Hawke said, no longer being diplomatic, “what aren’t you telling me?”

Fenris snapped his head up to face Hawke, and matched Hawke’s tone: “I have answered every question you have asked!”

“Except the last one!”

Fenris’ eyes dropped away from Hawke’s again, then closed. The pain showed on Fenris’ face for a second, and Hawke almost felt bad about pushing the issue. Fenris allowed himself one deep breath, and then he opened his eyes, looked at Hawke, and answered the question: “Danarius. Danarius is Cato’s father.” He sounded hurt. Another breath. “Cato does not know this. Please do not--”

“You’ve kidnapped Danarius’ _child_?!” Hawke said, not loudly enough for Cato to hear, but without hiding his feelings on the matter. He took a deep breath of his own, to calm himself rather than to prepare himself. “Fenris, I... I am completely against slavery, but don’t you think this changes the context of his search for you a bit?”

“No, I absolutely do not!” Fenris said. “Danarius is not some worried parent searching for his kidnapped son! He’s a master searching for two missing slaves, and if he had to choose between the two of them, _I_ am the one he would rather have back!” Fenris took another breath, and continued more calmly. “He doesn’t want Cato hurt because Cato is _valuable_ , not because he feels any parental affection for Cato. Feel free to contact him and tell him you know where Cato is, but the reply is going to go something like ‘Excellent. It’s very kind of you to help me retrieve my property. Do you know where Fenris is?’”

Hawke frowned. “I’m confused,” he admitted. “You said that Danarius was Cato’s _father_. He’s his master?”

“Those are not contradictory things, in Tevinter,” Fenris said. “A child inherits his mother’s status. Cato’s mother was a slave. Who Cato’s father is is irrelevant. He spent the years of his life before we ran away in slave quarters, not a Magister’s nursery.”

“So how do you know that Danarius is his father?”

There was a moment of silence, and then, “He resembles Danarius strongly, and...” Fenris’ gaze dropped again. “I was Danarius’ body guard. I was never away from him for more than a few minutes at a time. I was...” He tripped over the word, but managed to finish: “...there, the night Cato was conceived.” Fenris looked back up nervously. What was Fenris afraid of? Did Fenris expect Hawke to scream, to hit him, to punish him for his master’s crime?

“Oh.” Hawke said. “That’s.... horrifying.”

“Yes,” Fenris said. He relaxed slightly. 

Hawke swallowed the lump in his throat. Fenris was a _slave_. What could he really have done? He was a slave and she was a slave and Hawke knew nothing about what that was like, but he could tell that Fenris hated himself for what had happened, and objectively--as objective as one can be when one’s new friend admits that he once watched a woman get raped and did nothing--Hawke reasoned that there was nothing Fenris could have done, really. Danarius had owned Fenris. Danarius had owned the woman. They couldn’t have fought Danarius, and Tevinter law would not have been on their side if they had.

Hawke’s father had told Hawke, once, about the horrible things that happened in the Circle. It was near the end of Malcolm Hawke’s life, and he’d known it, so he’d taken Hawke aside and told him. Hawke needed to know, Malcolm had said, so that he could protect Bethany if they ever got caught; or so that Hawke would understand why he couldn’t let them get caught in the first place. Some of the Templars did horrible things, mostly to the women and especially to the elven women, and all the mages knew about it and did nothing, because there was nothing they could do. The pain on Fenris’ face was different from the regret in Malcolm Hawke’s eyes, but Hawke knew where it was coming from, even if he did not understand. 

Hawke hadn’t known what to say to his father, but time and maturity had given him words. He told Fenris what he had often wished that he had thought to tell his father: “It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done.” His voice shook. It sounded hollow even to Hawke.

“I suppose not,” Fenris said. He cleared his throat, and forced his face back into something close to neutrality. “This is what Cato’s _mother_ wants, for what that is worth.”

“It’s worth a great deal,” Hawke said. He sighed and shook his head. He’d made such an ass of himself! “I believe you. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m sorry I accused you of... I’m sorry.” Maker. He’d accused Fenris of _kidnapping_ , falling back on a host of racist stereotypes about elves stealing human babies. Why had he even thought that Fenris would do that? Hawke had been half ready to take Danarius’ side, and Fenris had picked up on that. How was he going to make this right? “I have made such an ass of myself. Please don’t hate me.”

“Hawke,” Fenris said, shaking his head, “it is fine. I... Perhaps I should have been honest with you from the start. _I_ apologize. I do not often meet people I can trust.”

“ _You_ don’t need to apologize,” Hawke said. “I understand why you’re not quick to trust. If you trust the wrong person, it’s all over. For you and for Cato.”

Fenris nodded. 

“So where was he,” Hawke asked, “when we were clearing all the demons out of this place?”

“I left him somewhere safe and out of sight.”

“And if you’d been caught by slavers?”

“I would have told them where he was.” Hawke wore his shock on his face, and Fenris shrugged. “The life of a slave is preferable to starvation, and as long as I believe that Danarius will not severely hurt Cato, I will return Cato to Danarius before I risk abandoning him to starve or for someone more malicious to find.”

“And that’s what his mother wants?” 

“That is what I, the adult who is taking care of him, think is best. Do not make me answerable to some imaginary woman in your head for every decision I make about Cato.”

Hawke cringed. He kept fucking this up. “Fair enough, I suppose. Do you have plans to reunite him with his mother at any point? Has she escaped too? Or is she going to?”

“No,” Fenris said, in a tone that made Hawke think he’d fucked something else up without even realizing it. “Cato is going to be in my care long-term. If you’re hoping that eventually he will go away and I will stick around to continue being useful, put that out of your head now.”

“No!” Hawke said. “I didn’t mean--I’m just trying to understand! Having him around does change things,” Hawke pointed out. “You can’t just leave him alone whenever I need your help.” 

“I can’t?” Fenris sounded genuinely confused, not challenging. 

Hawke frowned. “Fenris, he’s... what, six?” 

“Almost seven,” Fenris said. “For a slave, that is old enough to not only be alone, but be looking after a toddler.” Fenris was frowning too now. “I have left him alone before, when necessary, and he has never gotten into any trouble. I’ve had little choice in the matter, anyway. If I have to confront a band of slavers that are chasing us, or do what I must for us to have food... It would be far more dangerous to keep him near me, at times.” 

“Well, you’ve got friends now,” Hawke said. “That means we can find people to look after him for a few hours, when needed.” 

Fenris looked apprehensive. “I have not trusted anyone else with him since we ran. You are certain he will be safe with them?”

Hawke smiled. “Well, I’m not recommending _Isabela_ for babysitting duty, but most of my friends are at least better than leaving him alone. Aveline, Varric, Merrill--”

“I do not want Cato around Anders and Merrill,” Fenris said. 

“... Okay,” Hawke said. “Fine. Not Anders and Merrill. But _someone_. You can’t just keep leaving him alone. Nothing’s gone wrong yet, but that doesn’t mean that nothing _will_ go wrong, and if something does, you’ll want an adult around.”

“Very well,” Fenris said. Then, he decided that that was insufficient and added, “I appreciate your help in this. And your concern. I confess, I know little about child care, even after three years.” 

Hawke smiled. “You seem to be doing a fine job.” 

Fenris looked like he didn’t believe Hawke, but the corners of his mouth twitched up. “Thank you,” he said. 

“It can’t be easy,” Hawke said, “living the way that you do, with a child. Have you been on the run a long time?”

“Three years, now,” Fenris said. “Danarius has a way of finding me. Perhaps it is the markings? Whatever the means, it never takes him long to follow. This is the first time I’ve given him reason to pause. I suppose there are advantages in numbers.” 

“Haven’t you sought help before?”

Fenris shrugged. “Hirelings, when I could steal the coin. Never anyone of substance, until you. Danarius will not give up, however. I await his return.”

“What if he does give up? What then?” 

“Then I go to him,” Fenris said calmly. “I will figure out a way to keep Cato safe during the confrontation. I will not live with a wolf at my back.”

“Sounds like the right idea to me.” If Hawke could confront the Templars similarly, he would. 

“If it comes to that,” Fenris said. “I doubt it will.” 

“Well, I'm glad you want to stick around.” 

“I'm glad you're glad.” Their eyes met, and for a moment, Hawke truly felt as though he’d been forgiven for his blunders earlier in the conversation, though he didn’t deserve the forgiveness. Fenris broke the eye contact, but his tone remained friendly: “I should thank you again for helping me against the hunters. Had I known Anso would find me a man so capable, I might have asked him to look sooner.” 

Hawke chuckled. “You sound like you’re about to ask for a loan.” 

Fenris smirked and shrugged. “Well, this mansion does require some upkeep. Perhaps I’ll practice my flattery for your next visit? With any luck, I’ll become better at it.”

~*~

Cato’s bruise was gone the next morning. Hawke stopped by Fenris’ mansion with lunch, a rolling hoop, and a set of toy chevaliers. (It was that or Templars.) Fenris was skeptical at first, but Hawke maintained that it was nothing more than a shameless attempt to buy forgiveness for the night before, and Fenris quickly relented. He could hardly have refused the gifts, with as excited as Cato became when he saw them. Fenris was barely able to get Cato to eat before he ran off to play.

“That is impressive,” Fenris said. “I have never seen him so uninterested in food.”

Hawke smiled. “I’m glad he likes the toys.”

Hawke’s mind wasn’t on the conversation at hand, however. Cato had sat down to eat in shorts, with two uninjured knees. 

“Did you move the rug out of his room?” Hawke asked.

“I did,” Fenris said. 

“Good,” Hawke said casually. “His knee healed very quickly.”

“Yes,” Fenris said. Fenris’ voice confirmed what Hawke suspected. “He's young. He bounces back from injuries quickly.” 

Hawke got as far as opening his mouth, but then he stopped himself. It was Fenris he was talking to, and Fenris knew. Hawke could hear it in Fenris' tone. If Fenris wasn't ready to talk about it yet, perhaps it was best that Hawke give him some time.

As interesting as the mark that was not on Cato's body were the marks that were there. There were six straight parallel scars running across each of Cato’s arms, starting just below the shoulder. If Hawke had to guess, they were made by long, steady strokes from a small blade. Hawke could think of no animal that could do that.

He asked Fenris about them, and got the expected answer: “Danarius. Please don’t draw Cato’s attention to them.” Fenris would say no more about them. Hawke still felt like an ass after accusing Fenris of kidnapping, and he really did trust Fenris, so he didn’t push.

Three weeks later, they returned from an adventure in the Bone Pit and found Hawke’s mother with her hair standing on its ends. She had been watching Cato as often as not, and apparently on that day, Cato had reached up to take an apple from her and accidentally electrocuted her. 

“It’s quite alright,” Hawke’s mother had assured Fenris. “I know how they can be at this age. I just would have appreciated a warning.”

“I apologize,” Fenris said, blushing slightly and pointedly not looking anyone in the eyes. “I don’t know how he managed to do that.” 

Hawke’s mother had frowned at Fenris, for a moment, then smiled and waved at him and Cato as they left. When they closed the door, she waited approximately ten seconds before turning to Hawke and saying, “He does _realize_ , doesn’t he?” 

Hawke nodded. “I think he does, mother, but it’s not easy for him. Give him some time to accept it on his own.”

Their attention was quickly pulled away from Cato’s magical abilities. The next time Hawke’s mother reported odd behavior, it wasn’t that he was shooting lightning bolts at her, but rather that, “He’s complaining almost every day of feeling ill, but I don’t think he is. I’m not too worried about it--Bethany went through that phase as well, Maker rest her soul--but I thought you should know.”

Fenris apologized and assured Leandra that he would have a talk with Cato about lying, but the behavior continued, and Fenris became so concerned that he gave in and took Cato to Anders. 

Hawke had been optimistic, thinking that a shared goal of healing a sick child would make Fenris and Anders put aside their feelings about each other for ten minutes. His optimism, as it often was, was misplaced.

Anders was aware that Fenris was caring for a child, as he had healed several child-sized bite marks on Fenris’ arms, but Hawke had respected Fenris’ wish that Cato be kept away from Anders and Merrill, so Anders had never seen the child before. As soon as he did, his eyes locked on the scars on Cato’s arms. Anders examined the child’s stomach as directed, but kept shooting suspicious glances at Fenris. Finally, he stopped and said, “Can I ask you some questions, Cato?”

The child nodded. 

“Do you feel scared a lot?”

Next to Hawke, Fenris tensed. 

The child nodded. 

“What are you scared of?” 

Cato was quiet for a few seconds. “Slavers,” he said softly. “They come in the middle of the night and then we have to run away again, and sometimes Fenris gets mad and hurts them.” He leaned in close to whisper into Anders’ ear, but he didn’t quite understand the concept of whispering, so when he said, “I don’t like it when Fenris kills people,” it was more than loud enough for Fenris to hear.

Fenris flinched, but said nothing.

Anders looked at Fenris with a raised eyebrow as if to say, ‘You _kill_ people in front of him?!’

Fenris got the message. “What am I _supposed_ to do?!” he asked. “I try to avoid him seeing, but sometimes that is not an option. When the only alternative is for us both to be recaptured by slavers, I will do what I must! You would understand, if we were being hunted by a Templar instead of a Magister.”

Anders blinked, then turned his head back to Cato in what felt go Hawke like a silent concessions to Fenris’ point. 

“Do you feel better when Fenris is not around?” Anders asked Cato.

Fenris growled. “Just what are you implying, mage?”

Anders didn’t look away from Cato.

Cato shook his head. “Worse.” 

Anders nodded. “Okay... And how did you get those scars?”

That was it, for Fenris. “In what way is that relevant to his stomach problems?!” He scooped Cato up with surprising ease, considering their relative sizes, and held him tightly to his chest. “I did not bring him here for you to satisfy your morbid curiosity about his body or his past!” He looked at the child, and in a gentle voice, he said, “You do not have to answer that, Cato.”

“And just why don’t you _want_ him to answer that?” Anders asked. 

Fenris met his eyes and glared. “If you mean to accuse me of something, say so.”

“I’ll say this:” Anders said, “I believe that his stomach problems are being caused by stress, not anything physical, and I would like to make sure he feels safe in his home. That you are preventing me from making sure of that concerns me greatly.” 

There was something else in Anders’ voice. 

Fenris began to glow. 

“Don’t kill him, Fenris,” Cato said quietly, burying his head in Fenris' shoulder. 

“I am doing my best,” Fenris said. But he wasn’t. He was threatening Anders, and he knew it. His markings didn’t activate themselves. “I think we should leave.”

“Wait!” Hawke said. “Can we all just take a deep breath here? I don’t want the two of you killing each other either. Now _or_ later.”

Anders and Fenris at least both stopped and looked at Hawke. That was a start. 

“You’re both just concerned for the child, right? I don’t think this is helping.” 

That calmed Fenris down nearly immediately. He looked at Cato, who was curling in on himself in Fenris’ arms, looking much smaller than he really was and clinging tightly to Fenris’ armor. Fenris shifted his hold on the child to something more comforting than possessive, and he deactivate his markings. 

Anders just looked at Hawke coolly. 

“Anders,” Hawke said, “a lot of people have scars they’re very sensitive about. You of all people should know that. The fact that Fenris doesn’t want to talk about those scars or let Cato talk about them does not mean that Fenris hurt Cato.”

“Thank you,” Fenris said tightly. 

“Fenris,” Hawke said, “Anders doesn’t have all of the information that you do, or even all of the information that _I_ do. He is just trying to be safe rather than sorry. Could we compromise and let him check on how old the scars are, rather than anyone answering any questions? Would you and Cato feel comfortable with that?”

Fenris was quiet for a minute. He stroked Cato’s hair and took a few deep breaths, then quietly said, “Would it be alright if the healer checked your marks, Cato?” He looked over at Anders. “It won’t hurt, correct?”

“It won’t hurt,” Anders said, in his usual voice. “I promise.”

“Okay,” Cato said into Fenris’ chest. He didn’t turn his head to look at Anders when Anders walked over, touched his arm, and ran a few diagnostic spells. 

There was a long minute of silence, and then Anders said, “These were made at different times...” There was a note of curiosity in his voice, and Hawke pounced on it and suffocated it with a stern look before it could become a problem. “But all of them were made at least four years ago,” Anders said, all business. Then he sighed. “Alright. I believe you. You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Fenris said, forcing it. “But then why is my--why is Cato sick?” 

“Like I said, it's stress,” Anders said. “Probably just the stress of being in a new place. A lot of kids at the tower get it. It should stop on its own after a few months, when he gets comfortable here.”

“Goo--” Fenris’ breath caught. Cato’s teeth had found their way into his neck. 

The child pulled his mouth away and then wriggled out of Fenris arms and gave every adult in the room a wide berth. Fenris slapped his hand over the teeth marks and stared at Cato sadly while Hawke and Anders stood silent, all but holding their breath.

Fenris swallowed hard and regained his composure. “That is good,” he said calmly. He looked at Cato, and for a moment seemed to be thinking about going to pick him up, but he thought better of it. Without moving from where he was, he said, “Cato, it’s time to go.”

Fenris removed his hand. The bite mark was bleeding. 

Anders looked troubled. “I can--” he tried, but Fenris cut him off. 

“No. It is fine.” 

The child had moved toward them a little. Though he was still keeping his distance, it was obvious enough that he was going to follow them.

Fenris left, and Hawke and Cato followed. Once they were outside, Hawke and Fenris let Cato walk on his own, just out of arm's reach, though they kept their eyes on him. 

Hawke watched the blood from the teeth marks slowly work its way under Fenris armor.


	2. Act 1 - Part 2

It was Hawke’s third night in the mansion, and he still wasn’t used to how large and comfortable everything was. It wasn’t that he missed the squalor of Gamlen’s house, and sharing a bunk bed with his mother had been a novel experience in all the worst ways, but Hawke had been down in the Deep Roads longer than he had been in this mansion, and laying down in a bed with enough room for him to sprawl out and a mattress thicker than his blanket, in a private room that was warm even in the middle of winter, felt wrong. Hawke had never known such luxury, even in Lothering, and it still didn’t quite feel real.

He woke to the sound of impatient rapping on his bedroom door. 

“Can it wait?” Hawke called, rolling over. “I’m in bed!” He looked out his window into the courtyard and confirmed that it was still dark. 

His bedroom door opened. “No,” Fenris said, walking into the room. “I apologize, but it cannot wait.”

“Fenris?” Hawke said, sitting up in bed. “What’s wrong? Did Danarius come?!”

“No,” Fenris said. “It’s Cato. He had another nightmare, and in his panic he created some kind of ice wall over his door. Now he can’t make it go away. He is unhurt and I’ve calmed him down, and my markings allow me to pass through and get to him, but we cannot get him out. Chipping away at pieces of it would take ages and...” Fenris sighed. “Perhaps this _could_ wait. I apologize. I panicked. It does not sound so dire when I say it out loud.”

“No,” Hawke said, trying to shake himself the rest of the way out of sleep. “That’s pretty important, actually. You’re right. Something could happen and... Just let me get dressed and I’ll see what I can do.” With a wave of his hand, he lit the candle on his nightstand. 

“Thank you,” Fenris said.

“Any time,” Hawke said as he opened his dresser. “Even in the middle of the night.” He gave Fenris his most reassuring smile. “... How did you get in here, anyway?”

Fenris shrugged. “You only have one servant, and he sleeps at night, so I activated my markings and let myself in.”

‘Only one servant.’ Maker, that was strange to hear. And Fenris didn’t sound in the least bit impressed. His bar for ‘wealthy’ was set by Magisters who owned dozens of slaves; more than enough to have someone answer the door at all hours of night.

It wasn’t until he’d picked out a pair of trousers that he realized he was standing there without any on. He blushed, but Fenris did not seem to notice, or find anything uncomfortable about the situation if he did notice.

“Should I not have done that?” Fenris asked suddenly, as if it had just occurred to him that some people might consider that an intrusion. 

“No,” Hawke said. “It’s fine.” 

He was dressed now, so he blew out the candle and let Fenris lead the way back to his mansion and up to Cato’s bedroom.

Just as Fenris said, there was a thick wall of ice blocking the door on the inside. The candles in the hallway were lit, so Hawke could see clearly, and could even make out a vaguely Cato-shaped and -colored blur on the other side of the ice.

“I am back, Cato,” Fenris said. “And I have Hawke with me.”

“I’m going to get you out,” Hawke promised quickly. He looked at Fenris. “Go in there with him and get him somewhere safe: in a toy box or a wardrobe, wherever you can.”

“What are you going to do?” Fenris asked. 

“I’m going to shatter the ice. But the pieces will probably fly everywhere, so make sure he’s safe.”

Fenris nodded. He activated his markings and stepped through the ice, and Hawke listened for a moment as Fenris very gently explained to Cato that he needed to climb into the armoire and stay there while Hawke smashed up the ice. Cato made no objections to the suggestion, and crawled into the wardrobe as soon as Fenris had made enough room for him. As soon as Cato was in, Fenris stepped back through to Hawke’s side of the ice. 

He shivered dramatically, and Hawke couldn’t help but chuckle. 

Fenris growled slightly and crinkled his nose. 

“Step back,” Hawke said, and once Fenris had done so, Hawke hurled a stone fist at the ice, breaking right through it and scattering pieces of it all over Cato's bedroom. It took only a second, though it made a mess of the room that would take much longer to clean up.

“I thought this would be better,” Hawke explained. “It’s faster than melting it, and we can just take the pieces outside and let them melt in the sun rather than dealing with all the water on the floor.” It was winter, so it was possible the ice pieces wouldn't melt within the next few days, but they would melt _eventually_ , and it wasn't as if Fenris was using the garden in the meantime. 

Fenris nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Cato, it is safe to come out.”

The boy crawled out of the wardrobe and looked around at the shattered ice, then up at Hawke with wide green eyes. “How did you do that?” Cato asked. 

“A spell called Stone Fist,” Hawke said with a smile. “Maybe in a few years, I’ll be able to teach you how to do it.” 

Fenris looked pained. “Cato,” he said, not looking up at the child. “What do you say to Hawke?” Fenris’ voice was no better than his face. 

Cato looked away from Fenris and back to Hawke for just long enough to say “Thank you.” Then he looked back to Fenris and bit his lip. “I’m really sorry I froze the door,” he said earnestly. 

Fenris shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Cato. I know it was an accident.” He stared at the child sadly and said, “Can I have a hug, before you go back to bed?”

“Yes!” Cato said, and he rushed to deliver. Fenris held the boy close for longer than seemed reasonable for a simple goodnight hug, then sent Cato into the next room to sleep for the remainder of the night. Hawke assumed this was merely because of the time that cleaning up the ice would take, but then he noticed the crumpled pile of wet sheets and a wet sleeping gown.

As soon as Cato was gone, Hawke asked if something was wrong.

“No,” Fenris said, and Hawke was surprised, because he’d really expected Fenris to be a better liar than that. “Thank you for your help, Hawke.”

“We’re not done,” Hawke said. “We still need to move all of this ice outside.”

Fenris was quiet for a moment. “You don’t have to help with that,” he said.

“I want to.”

They decided quickly that the easiest thing to do would be to open the window and chuck the ice out of it, into the mansion’s small courtyard. This made the whole process take a fraction of the time it would have if they had attempted to carry the ice outside.

There were teeth marks on Fenris’ arm, so deep the skin was broken. Fenris seemed far more embarrassed and upset by Cato's biting problem than Cato did, but Hawke still told Fenris to “See Anders if that doesn’t look better after a week.”

Fenris nodded.

Fenris hardly spoke while they tossed the ice out. After sweeping the room and dumping the last few small ice chips out the window, he picked up a bag that had apparently been pulled out of the wardrobe to make room for Cato, and he set it on the dry head of bed. 

“I know a few laundering spells, you know,” Hawke said, looking at the wet spot. “Bethany and I could do the wash in a fraction of the time mother could. If you want, I could--” He nodded at the mattress.

“I would be grateful,” Fenris said. 

Hawke quickly cleaned the mattress, and then did the clothes, sheets, and blanket as well.

“Thank you,” Fenris said. He sounded as though the bedding had been far from his greatest concern. He stared at the bag for several seconds, deep in thought, and then he sighed. “Hawke, how much did your father tell you about the Circles?”

“Enough,” Hawke said, tensing.

“They take away their clothes, don’t they?” Fenris asked, not looking at Hawke. “Everyone has to wear those robes?”

“Yes...” Hawke said as alarm bells started going off in his head. 

“What about toys?” Fenris asked. “If a child arrives with toys, will he be allowed to keep them?”

“Fenris, you’re not thinking of giving Cato to the Templars?!”

Fenris looked at Hawke unflinchingly. “I am not _thinking_ of it. I am resigned to it.”

Hawke paused. Resigned. Not resolved. “You don’t want to?” he confirmed.

“Of course I don’t,” Fenris said. He looked at the bag sadly. “He was doing so well,” he said quietly. He looked back at Hawke and continued, “He doesn’t bite as much as he used to.” Hawke wondered just how often he used to bite. “Or wet the bed.” Fenris looked over at the wet sheets. “That hasn’t happened in months.” He looked back to Hawke. “He even made a friend here.” 

He had. Shortly before the expedition, Hawke’s mother had told Fenris that Cato ‘spent the day outside, playing with that little elf-blood boy from the alienage. I assumed you wouldn't object because--’ Fenris didn’t object, and Cato and Corwin had seen each other nearly every time Hawke’s mother had watched Cato since then. Now that Hawke and his mother no longer lived in the slums, Cato asked daily to go visit Corwin. They had even had a few play dates where Corwin and his parents had come to Fenris’ mansion. (Interestingly, Corwin’s parents, Aidan and Morag, were both elves. Hawke had learned his lesson with Fenris, and had not commented on it.) 

“That’s why I _tried_. I waited. I knew I would have to eventually, but I had hoped... but I can’t wait any longer! Not when things like this are happening! I can’t!”

“Yes, Fenris, you can!” Hawke said, careful not to yell and alert Cato to their conversation, but letting his tone show how he felt. “Do you really think _this_ is what Cato’s mother would want?” 

“ _Yes_!” Fenris hissed, glaring directly into his eyes with unwavering certainty. “I _do_! I assure you, I know Cato’s mother better than you do! Do not invoke situations you know nothing about to dissuade me from doing what is right! Cato’s mother would want what is best for everyone!” 

“‘ _Everyone_ ’ includes Cato!” Hawke said, “and what’s best for _Cato_ is to be protected from the Circles and the Templars.” 

“You mean like Thrask and Arianni protected _their_ children?” Fenris asked. “I saw what happened to Olivia _and_ to Feynriel! So did you! One became an Abomination before our eyes and the other will likely be so by the end of the month! So tell me: who are parents really protecting when they choose to keep their children out of the only institution where they would learn to control themselves?” 

“My sister and I, for starters,” Hawke said. 

Fenris softened immediately. “Hawke...” he said, “you must realize that that’s different? Your father was a mage; one who was trained in the Circle, even. _He_ taught you and your sister to control your magic and to use it responsibly. Cato’s mage father is on the other side of the continent, and I would not trust _him_ to train Cato even if he were not. I cannot train Cato myself, so I must take him to people who can.” Fenris sighed. “It’s not something I take any pleasure in doing. Know that.” 

Hawke could see Fenris’ point. Where would he and Bethany have been without their father? “Well... What if you had someone outside of the Circle who could train him?”

“I do not.”

“You do,” Hawke said. He had no idea if it was really a good idea or not; it probably wasn’t. What did Hawke know about teaching children? Still, it had to be better than the Circle. “I would train him.”

“You would?” Fenris asked. “Hawke, that is... You realize what a big commitment this is? In the Circle, he’d be monitored around-the-clock...”

“And he will be here. If there are any more incidents like this, you’ll get me, and we’ll take care of it together. And I can give him lessons--four days a week? And then once he’s learned to control his mana flow and prevent accidents like this from happening, I’ll teach him how to cast spells intentionally. What do you say?”

Fenris hesitated. 

“Give it a chance, at least?” Hawke pleaded. “If it doesn’t work, you can always give him to the Templars later, but once you’ve given him up, he’s gone forever and there’s no taking it back.”

Fenris considered this for a moment and softened. “Very well,” he said. “We will try it.” Fenris looked up Hawke and forced an unsure smile. “He could do much worse than become an apostate like _you_. How soon can you begin?”

Hawke didn’t hold in his sigh of relief. “Tomorrow afternoon, if you’d like. At this stage, it won’t take much preparation.” 

Fenris agreed, and Hawke made it all the back into his bed before the weight of the responsibility he’d just volunteered himself for came crashing down on him, robbing him of any sleep he might still have gotten. 

Still, Fenris had a point: If Hawke wanted to keep children mage children out of the Circles, he needed to make sure they had a better option, even if he had to become the better option himself. How hard could it be?

Hawke spent most of the morning drinking coffee and talking to his mother. Hawke could remember little of his own early lessons from his father, but he remembered some of Bethany’s more clearly, and his mother was able to fill in quite a few blanks, and by lunch he had a vague idea of what he was going to do, though the terror had lessened only a little. 

As he told Fenris, there was nothing to prepare, at this stage, so he simply waited. Time crawled by after lunch, until there was a knock at the door and Bodhain cheerfully greeted Fenris and Cato. 

Fenris looked as nervous about this situation as Hawke did, and that didn’t put Hawke at ease at all. 

“Sage!” Cato called, skipping into the entry room, looking no worse for his rough night. The dog barked happily and jumped up to greet him. Cato fell to his knees before the dog and enthusiastically pet him while Sage licked at Cato’s face. 

“Good afternoon,” Hawke said. 

“Good afternoon,” Fenris returned.

“Fenris didn’t bring his sword,” Cato said, sounding for all the world like he was tattling. “I told him he should, but he said he wouldn’t need it, but he _always_ needs it. I know because it’s always got blood on it when he comes back.” 

“He won’t need it today,” Hawke said, sharing a smile with Fenris. “Fenris and I aren’t going out. I wanted to see _you_.” 

“Me?” Cato said. He thought about it for a minute. “Are you going to teach me now to do that rock thing?” 

Rock thing? Oh! Stone Fist! “No,” Hawke said. “You won’t be ready for that for a few more years. But it’s sort of related to that.” He looked up at Fenris. “Did you want to stay and watch, or--” 

“No,” Fenris said quickly. “I think it would be best for everyone if I left. I would just be in the way.” 

“Whatever you want,” Hawke said, trying not to sound too relieved. “I take you haven’t talked to him about why he’s here?” 

“I have not.” 

Hawke nodded for Fenris to follow him into the other room, and when Fenris did, Hawke said, “Then you haven’t talked to him about what he is?” 

Fenris looked sheepish. “I thought that perhaps you were a better person than I to introduce the topic with him. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.” 

“You’re worried you would?” 

Fenris sighed. “I know my biases, Hawke, and so do you. He has the rest of his life to be lectured by me. The first time he hears of this, I want it to be... I want him to learn to be responsible, not to hate himself. I trust _you_ to convey the gravity of the situation to him without making him feel frightened or like he’s been cursed. I trust you more than I trust myself, right now. You made it clear enough last night that I need to.” 

“Alright,” Hawke said. “Fair enough, I guess. What do you want me to tell him if he asks why he’s like this?” 

Fenris paled. It was obvious that it hadn’t occurred to him that Cato might actually ask that question. He looked away from Hawke for a moment and thought about it, and then said, “Deflect. Tell him why _you_ are a mage. He’s a smart child. He’ll figure it out.” 

“And if he asks for confirmation?” 

“Tell him that you do not know his father. It won’t be a lie.” 

Hawke sighed. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be best to just tell him?” 

Fenris glanced around the door frame to confirm that Cato was still preoccupied by the dog before whispering, “Tell him that his father is a Magister who raped his mother and regards him as nothing more than property? Let me repeat that I would like it if learning that he’s a mage did _not_ traumatize him.” 

“...You have a point,” Hawke said, nodding. “Alright. If he asks about his parents, I’ll deflect. Anything else?” 

Fenris sighed. “I am trusting you not only with his magical training but also with his _moral_ development. It is not that I won’t do what I can in that area, but _you_ are going to be the primary mage in his life. Please just... keep that in mind.” 

“I understand,” Hawke said. “I’ll set a good example for him, Fenris. I promise.” 

Fenris smiled slightly. “Alright. I’ll leave now. When should I be back?” 

Hawke shrugged. “Two or three hours?” 

Fenris agreed, said goodbye to both Hawke and Cato, and left them alone. Hawke could almost see the butterflies fluttering in Fenris’ stomach. This was terrifying for him. Hawke understood that. Fenris was raising Danarius’ mage child, and Hawke couldn’t begin to imagine how difficult that must be. Fenris loved the kid, though. He wanted what was best for Cato, even when it rightly scared him half to death. He was putting a lot of trust in Hawke to do and be the right thing, and Hawke had to be worthy of that trust. 

“Cato,” Hawke said, “Why don’t we sit down in the library?” 

Cato looked confused, but agreed. Sage followed the pair into the library and curled up at their feet while they sat in two armchairs in the sunny south-eastern corner of the room. Cato stared at his shoes. 

‘You’re just like your father!’ That was how Hawke’s mother had explained it to him, the first time he let out a spirit wisp in the living room. That had been enough, for Hawke. Daddy could do these things too, and Hawke had understood himself in relation to his father. 

Hawke could not explains things to Cato in similar terms. 

“Do you know what happened last night?” Better to just assess how much Cato already knew and go from there. “You understand that _you_ made that ice?” he confirmed. 

Cato nodded. “I’m sorry.” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Hawke said softly. “No one is mad at you. Cato, look at me.” The child looked up, and Hawke smiled. “ _I_ can do those things too. Did you know that?” For emphasis, Hawke raised a wall of ice between two book shelves. With another wave of his hand, he made it vanish. (If only getting rid of other people’s spells was as easy as getting rid of one’s own.) 

Cato brightened. “Yeah!” he said. “Like when you fixed Horsie!” 

“Yes!” Hawke said. “Like when I fixed Horsie!” 

“But you made the ice go away. I couldn’t.” 

“Not yet," Hawke said. “But that’s why you’re here. I want to teach you how.” 

Cato grinned. “Okay!” 

“But first,” Hawke said, “You need to understand why it happened, and how to keep yourself safe. Do you understand what a mage is, Cato?” 

Cato frowned. “Master was a mage.” 

‘Master.’ Hearing the word come out of a child’s lips hurts in ways Hawke couldn’t have imagined, and it hurt all the more for knowing that Danarius was more than Cato’s master. “You remember your mas--Danarius?” 

Cato raised an eyebrow. “Danarius?” 

“Your master.” 

Cato nodded. “I remember Master. He had this knife in his robes and he used to cut my arm and take my blood.” 

Hawke’s eyes widened. “He used you to power blood magic? When you were just three years old?” 

“Then he’d say ‘Stop crying, we’re almost done!’ but I’d keep crying anyway. And he’d say ‘Interesting,’ and he’d put me down and I’d run away.” 

“‘Interesting’? What was he doing?” 

Cato shrugged. 

Hawke quickly realized that Cato was not the right person to ask about this. At three years old, he couldn’t possibly have understood what he saw, and it probably wasn’t good for Cato to be reminded of it. 

Hawke shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. We’re nothing like Danarius. We’re... a different kind of mage. A good kind.”

Cato looked at Hawke, and his eyes slowly got wider. “But you help people,” he said. “You fix things. I just hurt people and make everything worse.”

“That’s not true,” Hawke said.

“Is too. Sometimes I hurt Fenris.”

Hawke remembered the teeth marks on Fenris’ arm, and that day he’d bitten Fenris’ neck so hard it had bled. 

“Well, you should stop doing that,” he said. “You stop doing that, and I’ll teach you how to fix things, and you’ll be like me. Sound good?”

“Yeah!” Cato said. 

“Good!” Hawke smiled for a moment, but then sobered himself. “There is one more thing, Cato: You can’t tell anyone you’re a mage.”

“Okay,” Cato said easily. “Fenris always says I shouldn’t tell strangers we’re Tevinter, either, so I don’t. Fenris says to tell people we’re from Nevarra, but we’ve never even been to Nevarra. I wish we could say that we were from Antiva, because I remember Antiva.”

Hawke smiled. Fenris and Cato must have gone down through Antiva to get to Kirkwall. “I don’t know that Fenris could pull off being Antivan.” 

Cato frowned. “Is the reason why I can’t tell strangers I’m a mage the same as the reason why I can’t tell strangers I’m from Tevinter?”

“It’s for a very similar reason, yes. I don’t think you should tell your friends either. Let’s just not tell anyone, and keep this our little secret, hm?”

“Okay. I’m good at not telling people things.”

Hawke chuckled. “I’m sure you are.” That was everything Hawke had wanted to talk about before the lesson. “Before we get started, do you have any questions?”

Cato frowned. 

_This is it,_ Hawke thought. _He’s going to ask why he’s like this._

Instead, Cato asked, “Are you and Fenris mad at each other?”

Hawke frowned. “Not that I am aware. Did Fenris say something?”

“No,” Cato said, squirming down into his seat, “but he didn’t want to stay today, and I heard you fighting last night.” He looked away. “You were fighting about me, weren’t you?”

Hawke flinched. They had tried to keep quiet, in the beginning, but that had gone out the window sometime around when Hawke tried to use Cato’s mother against Fenris. Of course Cato had heard them. He had only been one room away.

“Fenris and I...” he said. How was he going to explain this to a child, without making Cato feel like Fenris didn’t want him? “Fenris and I both care about you a lot. And last night, we were trying to figure out what the best way to help you was. And because we both care about you a lot, things got kind of heated when we disagreed. But it’s better now. We know how to help you, and I am not mad at Fenris. I don’t think Fenris is mad at me. Everything is better now, okay?”

Cato nodded. He said he had no more questions, so Hawke began the lesson in controlling mana flow, which would help prevent any more magical accidents. The question about _why_ Cato was a mage came, eventually, but not for several weeks, and the boy was very willing to accept the answers Hawke and Fenris had discussed, much to Fenris' great relief. 

Fenris was less thrilled, however, when Hawke told him about the conversation he'd had with Cato about Danarius cutting Cato's arm. 

“You called Danarius 'Danarius' in front of Cato?” 

Hawke blinked. “What would you have had me call him? 'Your father?'” 

“ _Master_ ,” Fenris said carefully. “Call Danarius 'your Master,' in front of Cato.”

Was this Fenris he was speaking to, or some sort of Fade spirit doing a bad impersonation of him? Why on Thedas would Fenris want Cato growing up thinking of Danarius as 'Master'? Didn't that rather defeat the point of running away with him? 

Fenris saw the confusion on Hawke's face. “Cato is too young to understand that if we ever get recaptured, he needs to refer to Danarius as 'Master' to his face. I would rather he be in the habit of referring to Danarius as 'master' all the time than see him punished for failing to do so if we ever get recaptured.” 

Recaptured. Sometimes it still didn't feel real to Hawke that that was a possibility. The primary threat to Cato's safety wasn't the Templars marching through the streets of this very city, but rather a mage on the opposite coast. Fenris had to plan, always, for the eventuality that they would be stripped of their freedom and hauled back to Tevinter. It hit Hawke again that Fenris had sat down at some point and asked himself under what circumstances he would voluntarily surrender Cato to slavers. 

Hawke nodded. “I understand.”


	3. Act 1 - Part 3

Cato couldn’t read. Thinking on it, Hawke didn’t know why he had ever expected otherwise. The child was only seven, and had spent half of his life running from slavers. Hawke tried not to react as though this development was any significant inconvenience, and quickly set out to teach the boy his letters.

By that point, Hawke had been aware for some time that Cato had a biting problem. He’d seen the teeth marks on Fenris many times, he'd seen the teeth marks be placed once, and Fenris had even mentioned them to Hawke on several occasions. Yet, knowing ahead of time that the problem existed did little to diminish Hawke’s sense of shock and betrayal--However unreasonable it was to feel betrayed by a seven-year-old--the first time that Cato couldn’t remember what sound the letter ‘R’ made and chose to vent his frustration by sinking his teeth into Hawke’s left arm. 

Hawke ended the lesson abruptly and yelled at Cato, and though his words were not particularly harsh, his tone sent the child into instant hysterics. It wasn’t until Hawke was halfway to delivering Cato home, when he saw the judgmental glares that expensive Hightown nannies apparently give muscular men dragging sobbing children through the streets, that he wondered if perhaps he could have handled that better. By the time he reached Fenris’ mansion, Hawke’s anger had abated, and _he_ was sorry when he saw that Cato still seemed to be struggling to get his tears under control. 

Fenris found a crying child and a bleeding mage at his door and looked like he’d just walked into a nightmare. Hawke got no farther into his explanation of what had transpired than “Cato bit me and I--” before Fenris cut him off. 

“You did what?!” Fenris demanded of the child, ushering Hawke and Cato inside. His eyes were wide, Hawke noticed, not with anger but with fear. 

Cato could not tell the difference. The tears returned in full force, and a thin layer of ice began to develop on the floor. 

This did nothing to calm Fenris down. He looked from the floor to the child, then up at Hawke, and Hawke could almost see the last thought that Hawke wanted Fenris to have reforming in Fenris’ mind.

Hawke didn’t let it finish forming. 

“Cato,” Hawke said in his most soothing tone, “it’s okay. We just need to talk about it. Can you take some deep breaths for me, please? Let’s take some deep breaths.” Hawke demonstrated, and Cato stared at him for a moment, then attempted to match Hawke’s breaths. Their stomachs expanded in sync, and in a minute, Cato’s sobbing was under control, and the ice stopped spreading. 

It did not rescind. 

“Good,” Hawke said softly. He looked to Fenris and gave an encouraging smile, because this _was_ good. Compared to their last incident, this was very minor and entirely under control. Things were getting better. “Good. Thank you. Now, I want to try something new, but you have to stay really calm for it, okay?” 

Cato nodded. 

“Will it help if I or Fenris holds you?” Hawke asked. He remembered sitting on his father’s lap during some of his struggles with controlling his magic. It had helped. Hawke had always felt safer on his father’s lap. 

Cato shook his head.

“Okay,” Hawke said. “So, what I want you to do is look down at the ice.” 

Cato did so. 

“Good. Now, keep your breathing steady, and channel your mana into your hands. You’ll feel it go there. Let me know when you feel it.” Hawke had wanted to practice this part and only this part with Cato a few times before graduating him to actually creating and removing spells. This situation did not allow for that. Hawke had to be flexible. 

A long minute went by with no sound but Cato’s deep breathing, and then Cato said, “I feel it.” 

“Good,” Hawke said. “Now, I want you to visualize your mana coming out of your hands and connecting to the ice.” 

There was a moment of silence, and then: “I don’t know what color my mana is.” 

“It’s yours. It’s whatever color you want it to be.” 

Three seconds. “Okay. It’s green.” 

“Green is a good color. Now, I want you to grab onto the mana like a rope, then tug it up really hard, and make the ice go away.”

Cato made a fist and jerked his arm upward, just as Hawke had instructed. The ice vanished, and air returned to Hawke’s lungs, as well as Fenris’, from the look of it. It had worked. Everything was going to be okay. 

When Cato realized what had happened, he jumped slightly, then looked up with big green eyes. “I made the ice go away?” he asked. 

Hawke nodded. “You did. Good job.” 

“Yay!” Cato turned to Fenris. “Fenris, look! I did something, and it wasn’t an accident!” 

“So I see,” Fenris said. Cato’s celebration had given him enough time to compose himself, and with a steady voice, he said, “I’m very proud of you.” He allowed the boy to celebrate for a moment before saying, “We do, however, still need to talk.” 

Cato deflated.

“Talk,” Hawke repeated. “Just talk. No more yelling,” he said, looking from Fenris to Hawke. 

Fenris nodded.

Hawke’s eyes settled on Cato. “We’re sorry we yelled,” he said. 

“It’s okay,” Cato said quietly. “But you promise no more?” 

“Yes, I promise.” Hawke looked at Fenris. 

“I promise,” Fenris said. 

Cato sat down in the nearest chair. 

“But, Cato,” Fenris said, “We need to figure something out. I have asked you nicely to stop biting many times, and it’s still happening. It’s getting worse, in fact, because this time it wasn’t me you bit. You bit Hawke. You hurt Hawke.” 

Cato frowned. He looked at the red teeth marks on Hawke’s arm and said, “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Hawke said. “But why did you do it?” 

“I wanted to stop,” Cato said in a quiet, high-pitched voice.

“I understand that reading is hard,” Hawke said, “but that’s no reason to bite people. You could have just said ‘I want to stop now.’ We could have taken a break, or worked on something else, and come back to the reading later.” 

Cato was quiet. 

“Can you do that next time?” Hawke asked. “ _Say_ what you need, rather than biting people and expecting them to guess what you need?” 

Cato nodded. “I can do that.” 

Hawke hoped that was true. “Is that why you bite Fenris as well?” he asked.

Cato shook his head. “Fenris doesn’t make me read.” 

Hawke looked at Fenris, and Fenris quickly looked away. 

They could have that conversation after they were done with this one. Hawke looked back at Cato. “But do you bite him because you are frustrated and want whatever is going on to stop?”

Cato nodded.

“So how about, from now on, you use words when you’re uncomfortable or frustrated, whether it’s with me or with Fenris or with someone else?” 

“Okay,” Cato said. “I’ll try. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

“Apology accepted.” 

Fenris gave Hawke a wide-eyed look, and then turned to the child. “I think you need a nap, Cato,” Fenris said. “It has clearly been a very long afternoon. Go to bed. I’ll be up to check on you in a little bit.” 

The afternoon had been so harrowing that Cato nodded and headed upstairs without any argument. 

Once he was out of earshot, Fenris looked at Hawke sadly. “I understand,” he said, “if you do not wish to continue Cato’s lessons...” 

“What?” Hawke said. “Of course I do. I--It’s been dealt with, right?” He smiled, and Fenris relaxed. “Can we talk about his reading, though?”

Fenris tensed again, though it was nowhere near where it was before. “Oh,” he said. “Is he very bad at it?”

“No,” Hawke said. “He’s progressing just fine. But it would be helpful if you would work with him at home. This _is_ something you can help him with.” 

Fenris didn’t relax. “Hawke...” he said, but then he lost his nerve. His eyes fell to the table and he started over again. “I... do not have books.” He looked up, and spoke with more confidence now. “Or, rather, I do not have books that I would want him to read. The subject matter of many books in the library is too violent for a child of his age, and in any case, most of those books are very large, and Cato is very new to reading. Is he ready for those?” 

“Oh,” Hawke said. “That’s not a problem. In fact, mother told me that there’s a merchant the Market District selling books to help kids learn their sounds. I’ll buy two copies. We’ll keep one at my place, and the other one here, and you can just work with him out of that, for now. How does that sound?” 

“Excellent,” Fenris said. He still sounded apprehensive, but Hawke let it go. It had been a stressful afternoon. “I should go make sure that Cato is in bed.” 

Hawke followed Fenris upstairs, but hovered near the door of Cato’s room when Fenris went in. Cato was lying in bed, but not asleep. 

“Thank you for going to bed,” Fenris said, walking over to the window. There was a blanket on the floor there, and Fenris picked it up and hung it over the bare curtain rod, darkening the room considerably to make it easier for Cato to fall asleep. 

Cato yawned. 

“I’ll wake you in an hour or so,” Fenris said, walking over to the bed. He knelt down and kissed the child softly on his forehead. “What would you like for dinner?” 

“Fish,” Cato said. 

“Realistic requests, please.” 

Hawke chuckled. “What’s unrealistic about fish? Kirkwall is right next to the sea. There’s loads of fish.” 

“There is also a lot of grass,” Fenris said. “Should I fry that up and serve it for dinner? It would make a nice side with the fish, wouldn’t it?” 

Cato giggled. 

“How about I just make another stew?” Fenris suggested.

“That’s good too,” Cato said. 

“Good,” Fenris said, standing up and heading for the door. “Sleep well, Cato. I will never let anyone harm you.”

Fenris’ idea of making stew turned out to be finding whatever was edible, throwing it in a pot, and letting it cook for a while. It was proper Ferelden cooking if Hawke had ever seen it, and he told Fenris as much. 

Fenris smirked. “The kitchen slaves in Tevinter would be scandalized.” He said it perfectly casually. “On a holiday, most of them would spend all day on dinner. One slave would handle a simple breakfast and lunch, while four of them made extravagant roasts and desserts...” Fenris sighed. “The food may be the only thing I miss about Tevinter.” 

“I’m surprised holiday meals were shared with slaves,” Hawke said.

Fenris’ face fell. “Danarius saw no benefit in starving his bodyguard,” he said. “I ate what he ate, and plenty of it.” He looked away. “Cato was not so lucky, however. Slave children are rarely fed like they should be... Then we were on the run, and food wasn’t always easy to come by. This is the first time in his life he’s consistently had enough to eat.” 

“It’s in the past,” Hawke said. “The two of you are doing great now.” 

“Are we? I am far from a perfect caretaker. _You_ handled that incident better than I did.” 

“No parent is perfect,” Hawke said. 

Fenris sighed and shook his head. He turned to stir the pot, and Hawke got the sense that it was mostly so that he wouldn't have to look at Hawke. “Perhaps if I remembered my own childhood...”

~*~

Fenris reluctantly agreed to let Cato come to Hawke’s birthday party, despite the fact that Anders and Merrill would be there, and no other children Cato’s age would. All of their friends were going to be at the party, and Morag and Aidan would be visiting their daughter inOstwick, so there was no one to babysit Cato. If Cato didn’t come to the party, Fenris couldn’t, and, as Hawke told Fenris, Fenris’ absence would make the evening neigh irrecoverable. 

Besides, Cato wanted to come. Upon hearing Hawke mention it to Fenris, he had emphatically explained that he’d never been to a party before, and if they had _cake_ then he _needed_ to go. (Hawke really hadn’t thought he’d heard the cake part. Cato had excellent hearing, at least when the word ‘cake’ was said.) 

“You have never even had cake,” Fenris said. “How do you know you like it?”

“Because _everybody_ likes cake! Corwin said! And he just had cake last week at his brother’s party!”

Hawke chuckled. “Let’s not deny the boy cake.”

“Could you not save him a piece?” Fenris asked. 

Cato pouted. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

Hawke pouted too. 

Fenris sighed. “Very well. We will go.” He gave Cato a stern look. “We will eat cake on _the opposite side of the room_ from the Abomination and the blood mage, and you will spend the rest of the time playing outside or upstairs. Fair compromise?”

“Yay!” Cato said, giving words to what Hawke had been thinking. 

The day itself rolled around, and the sky turned a solid gray and rain poured from the sky. It suited Hawke nicely, but Fenris came in looking very much like a cat, deeply offended that the rain had dared interrupt his perfectly pleasant stroll. 

Hawke dried Fenris with a wave of his hand, and watched Fenris arch with pleasure at the sudden warmth. Cato smiled at Hawke, but when Hawke moved to dry Cato, Cato quickly stopped him: “I’m going to go outside and play,” he said. 

Fenris looked at him. “Cato, you were just outside. It’s raining.”

“I know,” he said. “I want to go play in the rain.”

“My boy is out there right now, splashing around In puddles,” Bodhain said. “I’m sure he’d be very pleased to have some company.”

Varric, who’d arrived several minutes before, glanced out a window into the courtyard. “Look at that,” he said, chuckling. “A dwarf playing in the rain. Now I have seen everything.”

Cato gave Fenris a serious look. “ _Sandal_ gets to play outside,” he said. 

“Sandal does not need _my _permission,” Fenris said.__

__Cato stuck his bottom lip out. “You said,” he said. “You said I _had_ to play outside--” _ _

__“--or upstairs.” Hawke could see Fenris wearing down. There was nothing serious in his gaze or his tone, and his jaw was loose. “You really want to go play in that? You’ll be soaked.”_ _

__“I’ll dry him off when he comes back in,” Hawke said. “I’ll be doing it for Sandal anyway. Let the boy go play.” Hawke smiled at Fenris._ _

__Fenris sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Go outside. Enjoy being cold and wet.”_ _

__“I will!” the child bounded out the door._ _

__Fenris sighed and looked at Hawke. “You two have got to stop ganging up on me.” He shook his head. “Happy birthday, Hawke.” He handed Hawke a small package wrapped in newspapers from last week._ _

__“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Hawke said, as he had said to every friend he’d greeted that day. He’d told them all before, too. Apparently, they didn’t care._ _

__Fenris shrugged. “I have never gotten to shop for someone I care about before,” he said. “I wasn’t about to let you deny me the experience.”_ _

__Hawke smiled, and placed it carefully with the other gifts._ _

__Just as Fenris had said, Cato was drenched by the time all of the other guests arrived. Sandal had been outside for considerably longer, but you couldn’t tell that from looking at them. Both of their clothes had been drenched dark and heavy, and Cato’s dark curls had straightened under the weight of the water, making his hair look even longer than it normally did and sticking to his forehead at odd angles._ _

__Hawke dried Sandal off first, eliciting a cheer and a clap from Sandal. Cato watched him carefully. When Hawke turned to dry Cato off, Cato kept his look of concentration._ _

__Then Cato’s trousers caught fire._ _

__Fenris screamed louder than Cato did. Hawke cast an ice spell which instantly put out the fire, but left a shackle of ice around the now-crying child’s ankle._ _

__Fenris was on his knees before Cato in an instant, examining the leg. He gave Hawke a murderous glare, but seemed incapable of speaking._ _

__“I...” Hawke stammered. “I am so sorry. I have no idea what went wrong.”_ _

__“He didn’t do it!” Cato sobbed. “I did!” He stuck his lower lip out and looked from Fenris and Hawke with watery eyes. “I just wanted to show you that I could.”_ _

__Hawke relaxed. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t his mistake. It wasn’t his fault Cato was hurt and Fenris wasn’t going to hate him. It was okay._ _

__“And now it’s really cold and it hurts!” Cato sobbed._ _

__That snapped Hawke back to the realities of the situation he was in. Fenris was squeezing at the ice as if hoping to melt it with his body heat. Hawke waved his arm, and the ice vanished from beneath Fenris’ fingers._ _

__When Fenris’ fingers touched Cato’s bare skin, Cato whimpered._ _

__Fenris withdrew his hand immediately, and there was uncomfortable silence throughout the room. Anders stepped forward and knelt down beside Fenris. “Let me look at it,” he said._ _

__Cato looked at Fenris with wide eyes, and Fenris nodded. Once the permission had been granted, Cato offered up his ankle, which was red, but did not seem to be injured. Anders ran his hands over it a few times, emitting a soft glow from them._ _

__“Enchantment?” Sandal asked._ _

__“Magic,” Anders said calmly. When Anders removed his hands from Cato’s leg, it was its normal color again, and the only damage remaining was to the leg of the trousers._ _

__Cato stared down at Anders for a few seconds. He sniffled. “Thank you,” he said._ _

__“No problem,” Anders said, smiling up at him._ _

__Cato looked at Hawke. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”_ _

__Hawke took a deep breath. They would need to talk about this, later; perhaps during their next lesson, when the memory of the pain was not so fresh and Cato was in a better mood. Hawke didn’t mind Cato trying new things, but he _did_ mind Cato trying new things without talking to Hawke about how to do it safely, and he especially minded Cato attempting to show off in front of a room full of people who were not supposed to know that he was a mage. “It’s fine,” Hawke said. _ _

__Anders was still smiling as he stood. Fenris rose along with Anders. For the moment, Fenris tolerated Anders being so close to Cato. “So you’re a mage, huh?” he asked._ _

__Cato stared at Anders. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said. “Or tell people that I’m a mage.”_ _

__Hawke and Cato were going to have to have a _long_ talk tomorrow. _ _

__“No, you aren’t,” Fenris said, steering the child away from Anders. He paused, halfway there, and looked over his shoulder at Anders. “Thank you for healing him.”_ _

__Anders’ look hardened, and he opened his mouth, and Hawke braced himself for a fight. He could tell what Anders was thinking: Fenris should not be allowed to raise a mage child. Why did we _trust_ Fenris with a mage child then he supported the Circles and the Templars and mistrusted mages? Perhaps even ‘So, you didn’t toss him to the Templar wolves as soon as you found out? Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?’ _ _

__Hawke found himself frantically trying to think of a way to diffuse the argument as soon as it started._ _

__But Anders didn’t start it. He looked at the child that climbed into Fenris’ lap when Fenris sat down on the opposite side of the room, and he let it go._ _

__Hawke didn't give him time to rethink that. “I think it’s time for cake,” he said, eager to shift the focus to something, anything, else. It lightened Cato’s mood immediately, too, which was no small bonus._ _

__Hawke’s mother brought the cake out, and the group sang “Happy Birthday.” Fenris sang along, but Cato just sat in his lap, looking confused. At one point, he whispered “Is the cake supposed to be on fire?” in Fenris’ ear. Fenris nodded, which put him at ease._ _

__Hawke quickly took a bite of the first slice of cake, and then helped his mother cut and pass out the other pieces. Sandal and Cato got their firsts, and Hawke let his mother handle serving for a moment so that Hawke could watch Cato take his first bite of cake._ _

__Cato’s eyes widened, and then lit up a brilliant green color. He swallowed, and scarfed down the rest of his cake so quickly that his piece was gone before Fenris got a piece._ _

__“Fenris, I love cake,” Cato said._ _

__“I’m glad,” Fenris said, taking a bite of his own cake._ _

__Cato whispered something in Fenris’ ear that Hawke couldn’t hear, and Fenris chuckled._ _

__“No,” Fenris said._ _

__Cato pouted._ _

__“But you can have _some_ of it.” Fenris scooped more cake onto his fork and offered it to Cato rather than bringing it to his own mouth. _ _

__Cato perked up, and happily ate half of Fenris’ cake before Varric called for presents. Hawke’s mother insisted that he open Carver’s first: it was a vial of darkspawn blood, the likes of which Hawke had collected and sold for two bronze coins several times in the past, with a note attached:_ _

___Brother,_ _ _

___Sorry I can’t get you anything nicer. I never got to share in the profits of the Deep Roads expedition. Anyway, happy birthday. You can put this on the mantel or something. Just don’t drink it._ _ _

___~Carver._ _ _

__Well, with as busy as Carver must have been with the Grey Wardens, Hawke supposed he should be touched that Carver thought of him at all. Perhaps he would put it on the mantel. It would make a nice conversation starter._ _

__Hawke’s mother got Hawke a dwarven time-telling piece, which was certainly novel and might even be useful someday. Varric got Hawke a bottle of brandy. Merrill got Hawke a homemade friendship bracelet, which he immediately put on. Aveline got him a book on dragons, which made him smile. It was funny what they remembered from that journey from Lothering that felt like it had happened a lifetime ago._ _

__Hawke should probably have known from the look on Isabela’s face when Hawke reached her for her gift that he needed to send Cato and Sandal out of the room. Instead, caught up in the laughter and fun of the moment, Hawke reached into the box without thinking, and blindly pulled out a pair of nipple clamps._ _

__His face hadn’t even finished turning red before Cato asked, “What are those?”_ _

__“Isabela!” Fenris snapped, as Hawke shoved the gift back into the box. “Could you not have warned us first to send the boys out of the room?”_ _

__“Oh, lighten up,” Isabela said._ _

__“No!” Fenris said. “There are things that children have no business knowing about!”_ _

__“Ugh.” Isabela rolled her eyes. “You know, Fenris, sometimes I think you’re attractive. And then I remember that you’re a _mom_.” _ _

__“Fenris isn’t my mom,” Cato said. “Fenris just takes care of me. I never knew my mom.”_ _

__“Fenris is more of a mom than most of the women I know who’ve given birth.”_ _

__Hawke’s mother was hiding her face in her hands. If Hawke had to guess, she was glad that Hawke had convinced her to let this be a small, private affair, and that it wasn’t all of _her_ friends this had happened in front of. “Let’s just move on, shall we?” Hawke suggested. _ _

__“Right,” Bodhain said. “You two boys,” he looked from Sandal to Cato, “don’t need to worry about things like that any time soon.”_ _

__Bodhain and Sandal got Hawke a cheese knife. It was really a very nice cheese knife. Anders got Hawke a cat sweater, and while it was too warm to wear it then, Hawke was sure he’d enjoy it come autumn._ _

__Fenris and Cato got Hawke an amulet. It was nicer than Hawke would have expected them to be able to afford, though Hawke supposed that there were plenty of items in their mansion that they could have sold or traded for it. There was a beautiful red pendant on the end, and Hawke could feel the enchantments working on it._ _

__“It’ll make your fire hotter!” Cato explained, smiling._ _

__“It will also help protect you when others seek to harm you,” Fenris said softly._ _

__Hawke thanked them, and all of his friends, and that was the end of presents, and of cake. Cato and Sandal were sent off, and they both went right back outside, apparently undisturbed by both Isabela’s present and by Cato’s clothes catching fire._ _


	4. Act 2 - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act 2 - Part 1 of 4. The other three chapters should be up within 24 hours.

Fenris had watched Hawke’s lessons with Cato a few times, when Cato was young and Fenris still dropped Cato off and picked him up. Sometimes, Fenris had arrived at Hawke’s mansion before Hawke and Cato were done. When that had happened, Fenris had usually been happy to watch Hawke wrap up the lesson, and often Cato insisted on giving Fenris a practical demonstration of what he’d learned. 

Today, nearly a year after Fenris had started letting Cato walk to and from his lessons by himself, Fenris had come to pick Cato up. When Cato had pouted about being treated like a baby, Fenris had assured Cato that it was simply because he wanted to spend more time with him, and that had seemed to satisfy Cato. Hawke knew better. Fenris was here to watch the end of the lesson. 

Hawke couldn’t blame him. He’d known that this was going to make Fenris uncomfortable, so he’d explained it in detail ahead of time and asked for Fenris’ permission. Fenris had given it only on the condition that he be allowed to watch. 

Cato wasn’t twitchy around knives, normally. Isabela avoided everyone under the age of twenty or so, but Cato had spent some time around her despite this, and he had never seemed uncomfortable with _her_ unreasonably large daggers. 

He did flinch, however, when Hawke pulled a small dagger out of his robes. 

Out of the corner of his eyes, Hawke saw that Fenris flinched as well. 

Hawke kept the blade well away from Cato, and drew it across his hand, careful to hide all signs of his own pain. He didn’t want Cato to know that this hurt. He wanted Cato to get better at it, and that would mean practicing, perhaps failing a few times. Hawke had to allow him to fail without feeling guilty about it. 

“You can do this,” he said, offering Cato his bloody palm. 

Cato reached out tentatively and touched the balls of his fingers to the wound. 

“Remember what we talked about,” Hawke said, with less confidence than he normally spoke with during their lessons. Hawke was not a spirit healer, and nor had his father or sister been. Hawke was giving these lessons to Cato second-hand, after Anders had quickly taught them to Hawke, and Hawke knew there were things being lost in translation because he himself lacked the connection to the spirits required for spirit healing. 

This was the best they could do, though. Fenris still did not want Cato and Anders around each other if it could be avoided. 

“Don’t try to force this with your mana. Let the spirits guide you.” 

Fenris was tense. Cato, mercifully, wasn’t looking at Fenris, but Hawke was paying attention out of the corner of his eye. Fenris was uncomfortable with the _spirit_ aspect of Cato’s spirit healing, and had considered the fact that it made Cato much less likely to ever turn to blood magic only a very small comfort. Anders, after all, was a spirit healer. Fenris seemed concerned that they were at a heightened risk to become Abominations. Hawke had even dragged Fenris to the Gallows for a quick chat with Thrask (Still not Fenris’ favorite person, but Fenris had grown a bit more sympathetic over the last few years) about it. Thrask had assured them that, while many Templars _believed_ that spirit healers were more susceptible to demons, there was no evidence to support it as anything more than a superstition. That had helped, slightly. They were here. Fenris was allowing it. 

Hawke felt his skin begin to stitch itself back together, just like it did when Anders healed him, only more slowly. He smiled at Cato encouragingly, and though it took Cato two minutes to do what Anders could have done in seconds, when Cato finished, Hawke’s hand was pain, scar, and cut free. 

He held it up to show Cato, and Cato high-fived him. 

Magic was a strange thing. Mage children did it all the time, well and easily. That was how most of them got caught, or didn’t live long enough to get caught. One taught mage children how to _not_ do magic first, and then how to do it on purpose when it’s actually appropriate. Above all, one had to instill in them the wisdom to know when it _was_ appropriate and when it wasn’t. 

All of that was much harder than it had sounded three years ago, and yet Hawke looked forward to the lessons.

“Alright, Cato,” Hawke said, standing. “I promised. The last two cookies are yours.” 

“Yes!” Cato said, running off toward the kitchen to claim his prize. Hawke’s mother had been baking yesterday, which was unrelated to Hawke’s lessons with Cato, but had made for a convenient extra motivator. 

Hawke looked at Fenris directly and smiled, and Fenris gave a forced smile in return. Spirit healing practice had passed Fenris’ inspection, for the today.  

“I have something for you.” Hawke said. He walked over to the table where he’d left it, knowing Fenris would come today, and picked it up and handed it to Fenris. 

Fenris smiled. “Another book? It’s thick, too.” Hawke had been sending home books for Cato for a while now, but this was different. 

“It’s a subject you’re familiar with. It’s by Sheritan, the elf who helped Andraste free the slaves. You know about him, right?”

“A little,” Fenris said sheepishly, turning the book over in his hands. He did not look happy. 

“Is something wrong?” 

“It is just that... I’m not sure this subject matter is appropriate for Cato, at his age. Perhaps with time and a little more distance...”

Hawke chuckled. “It’s not for Cato, Fenris. It’s for you. I thought you might like to read it.”

“Oh,” Fenris said quietly, looking away. “I might,” he said, “... if I knew how.”

“Oh.” Hawke said. It was the only thing he could say for several seconds. 

“Slaves are not permitted to read,” Fenris explained, though no explanation was necessary. “I can do more than most elves in Tevinter can. Those books you got for Cato helped me as well. I know what sounds most letters make. I can sound out simple words. However, when we’re dealing with long sentences or...” He looked down at the book like it was impossibly huge. 

“But I've sent notes home with Cato before,” Hawke said. “And you responded to them.” 

“Verbally,” Fenris said. “I responded to your notes verbally after Cato read them to me.” 

That was true, now that Hawke thought about it. On every occasion when Hawke had sent a note home with Cato, Fenris had responded himself the next time he saw Hawke, or he'd had Cato tell Hawke what he said. Fenris had never once written Hawke a note of his own. 

Hawke frowned for a moment, then said, “Well, I taught Cato to read. I could teach you, too. It’s never too late to learn.”

“Is it?” Fenris said. “I wonder, sometimes.” 

They added it into their routine. Fenris would come to Hawke’s house at the end of Cato’s lessons, and though Cato was free to go home, he would usually opt to go outside and play with Sage and Sandal while Fenris and Hawke cuddled up and read together.

It was strange to think of it as cuddling, but there was really no other word for it. The fact that they had only one book necessitated them being close. It was comfortable enough. Fenris was surprisingly heavy (all that armor and muscle, Hawke supposed) so they had to avoid Fenris putting any weight on Hawke, but it was easy for Hawke to come up behind Fenris and wrap himself around Fenris. Fenris fit nicely in his arms, and Hawke liked the way Fenris smelled when Hawke rested his chin on Fenris shoulder. Fenris held the book, in a position that would have tired Hawke out in just a few pages but which Fenris never struggled with, and read to Hawke, asking for help where he needed it and accepted corrections where they were appropriate. It worked. It was very different than leaning over Cato’s shoulder had been, but Fenris was bigger, and a friend more than a student. There was nothing wrong with different. 

They didn’t even realize how intimate the position really was until the day that Cato came in from the garden, saw them, and giggled. “Hawke and Fen-ris, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G...”

Fenris looked up at the ceiling and thought about this. 

Cato waited five seconds before supplying, “Kissing.” The smirk on his face was gone. Apparently it ruined the fun when one of the people the song was directed at was just learning to read.

Fenris eyes got wide. “There is no kissing!” he said quickly. “You should not even know what that is! Who told you what kissing is?”

Cato didn’t seem phased by Fenris’ tone. “My friends have parents that kiss each other,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“Well,” Fenris said, “you do not.”

“I know,” Cato said with a shrug. “I don’t even have parents.” Without another thought, he turned and skipped toward the kitchen. 

Hawke thought nothing of that. Cato was always welcome to help himself to snacks. If Hawke were honest with himself, he was only buying strawberries for Cato. Neither Hawke nor his mother ate them, and Bodhain and Sandal only tolerated them at best.

Hawke and Fenris looked at each other, then shrugged and slipped right back into their usual position.

One day, when Cato had chosen to go home rather than play upstairs or outside, a thought struck Hawke, Fenris read a line about a historical figure's birthday, and as soon as Fenris finished his page, Hawke asked: “When is Cato’s birthday?”

Fenris thought for a moment, perfectly still in Hawke’s lap, then sighed and said, “No.”

“‘No’?” Hawke said. “He doesn’t have one? Or you’re not going to tell me?” 

“He doesn’t have one _and_ I am not going to tell you.”

Hawke squinted at him. “Why not?”

“Knowing you, you would want to celebrate it.” Fenris looked over his shoulder and gave Hawke a pained smile. “It’s a good thing. It’s one of the things that make you such a profoundly important person to me. But I can’t do this.”

“Every other child has a birthday,” Hawke pointed out. Cato was now up to _three_ friends in the alienage: Corwin, and two fully-elven sisters who lived next door to Corwin. Hawke knew for a fact that Cato had gone to two of their birthday parties already this year. “Doesn’t Cato wonder why he doesn’t?”

“He has asked,” Fenris grumbled. He took a breath, and more clearly said, “I explained to him that slaves do not have birthdays.”

“You and Cato are not slaves anymore.”

“But we were when he was born. Some things just... He has accepted it. He is sad about it, but he understands. I consider the matter settled, and I would appreciate you doing likewise. Bringing it up again would just upset him again.”

Bringing it up upset someone, certainly. Hawke stared at Fenris, trying to determine what was wrong, but he couldn't read Fenris' expression. 

Fenris sighed. “I am a terrible... I know. I am terrible and he deserves better. But there are things I just can’t give him, and this is one of them.”

'Just can't give him'? “Fenris, if you’re concerned that you can’t afford presents or a party, I’ll buy. All of his friends are from the alienage anyway. It wouldn’t cost much to make it the highlight of their year.”

Fenris’ eyes were wide and the pain in them was apparent, though he was looking down at the floor rather than at Hawke. “I wish that were the problem, Hawke,” he said softly. “I wish this were something you could just fix. But it’s not. You can’t. I’m sorry.”

He wouldn't speak of it further.

~

It was a chilly autumn night when Fenris knocked on Hawke’s door and insisted to Bodhain that he needed to speak with Hawke immediately. There was such a sense of urgency and importance to the whole conversation that Hawke was afraid, when he first came down from his room to see Fenris.

“Danarius?” Hawke asked. 

Fenris stopped, and blinked until he realized what Hawke was asking. “No,” he said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then said, “Frumentum... 27th.”

There was nothing about the date that stood out as special in Hawke’s mind. “... Isn’t for several weeks now?” Hawke said. 

Fenris nodded. “I know that.” His whole body was tense, like an animal that had been cornered and was about to strike. “It’s... You asked me once when Cato’s birthday is. That’s it. Or, it’s close to it. He was born at the end of Frumentum, I am certain of that. The 27th feels... It’s as good a guess as any.” And yet he looked as though it left a bad taste in his mouth. He paced the floor a few times. 

“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?” Hawke asked, brightening a little, but remaining aware of Fenris’ demeanor. 

Fenris stopped pacing. “...If you are still willing, I would like to do this for him. But I can’t... I will need your support. I can’t do this without you, and you have to understand.” 

Hawke nodded. “Alright, Fenris,” he said. “I understand why this is hard for you, and I--” 

“No,” Fenris said. “You don’t. You don’t understand why this is hard for me.” 

Hawke just stared at him silently for a moment. 

Fenris frowned. “This... is not an easy thing to say. I’ve thought about telling you before. I’ve even thought about telling _Cato_ , but... May I sit down?” It had been years since Fenris had actually asked that question. Fenris and Hawke had long been on friendly enough terms to simply assume permission. They were on friendly enough terms that cuddling to read together had become automatic and unquestioned.

Hawke nodded quickly. “Of course, Fenris. Make yourself comfortable.” 

“That isn’t possible right now, but I will try. Thank you.” He sat down, and Hawke sat across from him, and there was a long minute of total silence while Fenris thought about what he was going to say. “I knew that something was going to happen,” Fenris admitted at long last. He swallowed hard. “The night that Cato was conceived. I knew something horrible was about to happen, but I--It’s alright if I tell you this story, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Hawke said, ignoring the way he himself found it suddenly harder to breathe. Fenris was going to tell him. It wasn’t a story Hawke wanted to hear, but it was a story Hawke needed to listen to, for Fenris’ sake, to absolve Fenris of whatever guilt he still felt and see what could be done about lancing the wounds that remained. Hawke would do it, for Fenris’ sake. That was the least Hawke could do, because it would be much harder for Fenris to tell the story than for Hawke to listen to it. “Just tell me what you need.”

“If you would just listen, for now...” Fenris said appreciatively. He thought for a moment. “Three days in a row, Danarius went to the slave market and bought five elven slaves. Fourteen of them were... what they called ‘breeders’: healthy females of childbearing age. The last was a male around my own age. I had about two years of memory, at that point, and in all of it, Danarius had only purchased four slaves that he’d kept alive. All the rest were sacrifices.” Fenris let the weight of that sink in before continuing: “But this was different. You don’t buy perfect healthy slaves--especially not perfectly healthy _fertile_ slaves--and then sacrifice them. There are merchants who specialize in selling disabled or unruly slaves for blood. Danarius would not sacrifice such valuable slaves unless the spell specifically called for it, and even if it did, I couldn’t think of anything that would be worth squandering that much money to him. I thought at the time that he simply meant to impregnate the women and treat them as investments. I had hoped that I would not be expected to... breed with anyone, but that was my greatest fear, at that point.”

There was a pause, like Fenris expected Hawke to say something. “I take it that’s not what happened?” Hawke said. 

“It is not,” Fenris said. “Personally, I would have chosen that over what did happen. The others... Well,” Fenris sneered. “We will never know what _they_ would have chosen, and none of us were given a choice anyway.” He looked away from Hawke for a moment and sighed. When he looked back at Hawke, he said: “On the third day, Danarius summoned Julianus, who was an apprentice of his, and he showed Julianus a proposal for a ritual he wanted help with. Julianus read it and grew... concerned. He started talking to Danarius about his studies of transfigurations, guaranteed losses and risks versus potential gains... and he kept looking at me.” 

“That must have been unnerving,” Hawke said, just to assure Fenris that he was listening and to encourage Fenris to keep talking. 

“It was,” Fenris said. “But there was nothing I could do about it. Slaves are only allowed a limited range of feelings. Concern for one’s own well-being is seldom within that range. As soon as Julianus started to say something that might have actually revealed what Danarius was planning, Danarius stopped the conversation and sent him away.”

“I’m sorry,” Hawke said. 

Fenris shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered if Julianus had revealed everything. There was nothing I could do. I think Danarius just didn’t want to me worry.”

“Really?” Hawke asked.

Fenris sighed. “It is difficult to explain. Back then... I believed that he cared for me. Maybe in his own twisted way...” Fenris shook his head and made a face like he’d just stepped in a chamberpot. “It doesn’t matter. That night, Danarius didn’t let me have wine at dinner, which was odd. He normally gave me at least a few drinks of his, often more if...” But Fenris decided that train of thought wasn’t worth pursuing. “Everything was just... wrong, in subtle ways. I knew that something was about to happen and I knew that Danarius was going out of his way to hide what it was from me. I knew, and I stayed...” 

Fenris was quiet for nearly a minute straight, and Hawke began to squirm. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “If you’re not ready to do this, don’t do it.” 

“I will never be ready, Hawke,” Fenris said. “But Cato _is_ ready. I need to work through my own issues, rather than continuing to add to Cato’s issues. I have to let him have a birthday like a normal child. Perhaps someday I will even have to tell him this story.” He was quiet for several more seconds, and then he said, “First thing the next morning, Danarius led me to a rarely-used back room. All of the furniture had been removed, except a mattress, and a great many cheap rugs. All fifteen of the new slaves were there, as well as three of Danarius’ apprentices--Julianus not among them--and a handful of Magisters arrived shortly after. Every slave except myself was bound.

“Then Danarius asked me if I was feeling well. I said I was, and he pushed: ‘No sore throat? No headache? No sprains or scratches?’ He did not generally let me walk around with injuries or remarkable illnesses, but this level of concern over minute problems was unusual. I maintained that I was fine, however, and eventually he believed me. He sprinkled some sort of powder in a circle on one of the rugs, and then he told me to strip and go stand inside the circle. I obeyed, and Danarius nodded at Hadriana. She grabbed the male slave, pulled out her ritual dagger, and gave him a deep cut on the chest.” 

It was obvious why, but Hawke confirmed anyway. “For a blood sacrifice?” 

Fenris nodded. “I was relieved, for a moment. Everyone was so serious, I’d expected something terrible to happen, but the cut Hadriana gave the man was far from fatal. It would have left a nasty scar, but at that point, he could still have walked away. I felt a... slimy cold magic crawl up my body, starting from my feet and working its way. It was uncomfortable, but hardly the worst thing Danarius had ever put me through, so I held still and let it do what it was supposed to do. 

“Then the feeling passed. I stepped out of the circle at Danarius’ command, and it started glowing. Hadriana held the magic on it throughout everything that followed. Her sacrifice kept bleeding, but the blood flow was slow enough that I still was not worried about him, then.”

Fenris had to pause for a moment before going on. 

“Danarius told me to lie down on the mattress.” Fenris took a deep breath. “I did as he said, and Danarius grabbed the nearest female slave, and slit her throat.”

Hawke flinched. 

“Yes,” Fenris said, “it was even worse to watch. And to hear. She tried to scream, but there was blood in her throat and...” Fenris shook his head. “You don't need to hear all of that. As she bled out, my body changed. It started like a vibration and soon became pain, like someone had reached inside of me and was rearranging my internal organs. It spread outward from there. I looked down at my body, and I saw my chest change.”

“Change?” Hawke said. 

“I grew breasts,” Fenris said calmly. “The change was not very dramatic; they were small, but they were noticeable. I touched them and they were... squisher than my chest generally was. I tried to sit up to check on other areas, but Danarius repeated his instruction that I lie down.” 

“And you didn’t feel around... to the south?”

“I didn’t think my master would approve. I held still in hopes of pleasing him. Danarius approached me and... examined me. Changes that I couldn’t see were quickly made apparent. He admired my breasts and played with them, and he told one of his apprentices to note down how the lyrium had adapted with my body; the markings had moved to maintain their design as my body changed. He told me to activate my markings, and they worked as well as they ever had. Danarius seemed pleased by that. Then he removed his own clothes and he...” Fenris trailed off. He'd been speaking very clinically, if a bit quickly, but it was obvious he couldn't do it anymore. 

“He raped you, didn’t he?” Hawke said softly. “ _You’re_ Cato’s mother?”

Fenris seemed relieved to not have to say it directly. “He did and I am.” 

“Why would he do that?” 

Fenris laughed, utterly humorlessly and for far too long. “Oh,” he said after a minute, sobering up. “You were asking why would he go to all that trouble to impregnate me?”

Hawke nodded. 

Fenris shrugged. “A fellow Magister had begun theorizing on the effect that lyrium markings such as mine might have on offspring, should a female be marked and impregnated. I think Danarius felt threatened by her, and wanted to beat her to the tests before she stole his spotlight. To do that, he had to work with the resources available. I was the only already-marked resource available.” Fenris thought for a moment, then said, “He was crueler on that occasion than on others. I don't know if it was the body or the audience… I suppose I never will know.

“Thirteen female slaves were sacrificed for my fertility, and to expedite my pregnancy. One by one, an apprentice cut the throat of every elven woman in that room but one while my belly swelled.” Fenris drew in a sharp breath. “Then we had dinner. The slaves brought me a large plate of food, along with the food for the Magisters and apprentices, and Danarius bade me eat. I was hungry enough, despite the circumstances.” Fenris frowned. “I was too far along to get up from the floor without assistance. Cato seemed so huge. I suppose elven mothers must always think that when they have human children. I've never spoken to another about it... I rolled onto my side and ate sideways, propped up my elbow, face to face with all those dead women...” Fenris shook his head, obviously in an attempt to dismiss the memory. Hawke could tell it hadn’t worked very well. “There were two other slaves still alive then: one last woman, and the man. He was pale and had gone limp, but she was thrashing in her bonds, trying to get away, looking at me like I should help her, like I could. The Magisters left her to it. She was nothing to them, not even a nuisance.

“As soon as dinner was over, Danarius told the slaves who came to clear away the food to go fetch Fausta, our midwife. Then, the apprentice who had done most of the sacrifices to to that point grabbed the remaining elven woman and cut her throat, sending me into labor... I’ll spare you the gory details. I honestly don’t remember it very clearly myself, and it’s one memory I don’t mind having lost.” Fenris paused. “I do remember lying there when it was all done, exhausted and covered in blood and shit and surrounded by dead women. There was this blue light from the sunrise coming in through the window, and the baby was crying. Looking back on that, knowing Cato the way I do now, loving him the way I do now... It seems horrible to say it, but I hated sunrises for years.” 

Fenris shook his head. “In any case, Danarius ran some tests to confirm that Cato was healthy, gave him a name, and had Fausta take him away. Cato was put in the care of a female slave who had recently had a child of her own. She nursed him and raised him along with her daughter. I never even held him. When Fausta came back, she cleaned me up, and then Danarius pushed me into the circle and had me restored to my male body, at the cost of the male slave's life. That was it. I was sent to rest on my mat in Danarius’ quarters, and I went without a thought for the baby. I was permitted to sleep the day away, which was generous for Danarius, considering that I was back in a body that had never known the trauma of childbirth. Things went back to normal the day after. Cato was around, living in the estate, and once a week or so I’d catch a glimpse of him, but I never interacted with him and I kept a mental distance between myself and him.” 

Hawke sank back in his chair. “So how did you get from that to running away with him?”

Fenris sighed. “That story isn't any better, but I suppose I should tell you... Danarius ran tests on Cato on the first day of every third month. One day, shortly before Cato’s third birthday, Danarius did the tests as usual, but he looked troubled by something. When he was finished, he stopped, looked at Cato straight on for a minute, and then ran his finger over Cato’s ears, as if he was only just realizing that Cato passed for human, and furthermore bore a striking resemblance to his father. 

“The trip to Seheron had already been planned, but it was still a few weeks off. Danarius decided to kill two birds with one stone. The morning we set off, Danarius had Cato brought to him, and he informed us both that we’d be delivering Cato to Julianus while we were in Seheron. Julianus was living on a small estate in Seheron, then, working as close to the front lines of the war with the Qunari as esteemed enchanters get. A dangerous lifestyle, but often a profitable one for a young enchanter hoping to earn a seat on the Magisterium while he’s out-of-favor with his master and his father is unlikely to die soon. Julianus had only a few dozen slaves there, and most of them had military training. It was no place for a child, even a slave. It would get Cato out of sight and out of mind, however, without the permanency or the loss of research opportunities inherent in selling him. I believe that’s what Danarius wanted. It was also a nice slap in the face to Julianus, since he'd doubted that Danarius could pull off the ritual that created Cato. Julianus would continue running tests and reporting the results to Danarius, and Danarius would not have to deal with Cato directly. Julianus was eager to get back into Danarius’ favor, so I’m sure he was happy to agree. 

“Danarius and I ignored Cato on the ship, for the most part, and Cato did all he could to help us with that. Truth be told, I think he was terrified the whole way there. He spent most of the trip on his mat, hiding under his blanket. I was just relieved that he was keeping quiet. I was the only one around to deal with him if he annoyed Danarius.”

“That’s understandable,” Hawke assured Fenris. “You didn’t want Cato doing anything that might annoy Danarius for Cato’s sake as much as your own.” 

“Perhaps..” Fenris said. “The Qunari ambushed us shortly after we met with Julianus. Getting everyone to safety was just instinct and training. I didn’t have to worry about Cato much anyway. Danarius grabbed him--” He saw the look on Hawke’s face, and quickly explained: “For the same reason he’d have grabbed research notes. Cato is the first child born to a lyrium-infused mother in many ages, and while I don't know the specifics, there was _something_ about his blood that was of great interest to Danarius. It was worth monitoring him. I am certain it was nothing personal.” 

Hawke nodded. “I believe you.” 

Fenris relaxed slightly to hear it, then continued with his story: “I managed to get Danarius and Julianus to a ship, but there was no room for slaves.” 

“Even ones as small as Cato?”

Fenris smirked. “They were _less_ eager to take him than me. I could have worked, and would have been far more likely to endure a few days of starvation. In the end, though, they would not relent either way. Cato and I were both left behind, with the Qunari closing in on us. Danarius didn't seem optimistic about it. He told me to keep Cato alive _if I could_ , but remember that I was more valuable. He could have replaced Cato a lot more easily than he could have replaced me. 

“I had Cato climb onto my back, and somehow I managed to fight our way out, but when we got to tentative safety, I had a deep wound in my side and a crying toddler unintentionally choking me. I had the good sense to stop and put Cato down when I got too dizzy to walk, and then I blacked out on the jungle floor.”

“How did you survive?” Hawke asked.

Fenris smiled slightly, just for a second. “There are rebels in the Seheron jungles called Fog Warriors. They heard Cato’s cries and discovered him beside my unconscious body. They took us in and nursed me back to health. We stayed with them for a time, and it was from them that I learned the little I know about how to care for Cato. Everything from what to do with small injuries to how to express affection, I learned from the parents among the Fog Warriors. I’d have never been able to do this without them.”

“Then it sounds like they were good for you.” 

Fenris nodded. “For a time. When Danarius came for us, they refused to let him take us. He ordered me to kill them, so I did. I killed them all...” Hawke tried to hide his horror at hearing that, but he knew he'd failed when Fenris tried to explain: “It felt inevitable. My master had returned, and this... this fantasy life was over. But once it was done, I looked down at their bodies and felt... I couldn’t... I ran.” 

“And you took Cato?” 

“No,” Fenris said. “Cato was already gone. I don’t think Danarius had noticed yet, but when I... He was understandably distressed by the sight of such violence, and he ran from the scene long before I did. I saw him go, but it didn’t consciously register until about an hour later that he’d left.”

“So you went looking for him?” Hawke said. 

“Yes,” Fenris said. “As much as I wanted to tell myself that Danarius had likely already found him and he was fine, I couldn’t let it go. I went back to the Fog Warriors camp first, though I knew I was as likely to find Danarius as Cato. I thought that at least if I did find Danarius, we could find Cato together.” 

“But I take it you didn’t find Danarius?” 

“No,” Fenris said. “I didn’t. I _did_ find Cato, hiding in one of the tents. Danarius wasn’t in sight, and while it wasn’t exactly in my head yet that I was running away, I knew I wasn’t ready to be found, so I picked Cato up--and he let me do so--and I carried him away from the camp.”

“For several days, we stayed in the jungles of Seheron, and I wasn’t ready to commit to doing anything either way. Then, one morning, I woke up and I realized that I never wanted to return to Danarius. I realized how bitterly unhappy I had been for as long as I could remember, and how _good_ things had been with the Fog Warriors. I didn’t want to be a slave anymore, and I didn’t want Cato to be one. That was when I knew I was running away, and it seemed only natural that I would take Cato. The anger, the hatred of Danarius... That came later. At first, it was just about getting away from him.”

Fenris sighed. “I have gotten off topic. This is about throwing Cato a birthday party. He deserves one. But... I hope you understand why it’s going to be very difficult for me to _celebrate_ the anniversary of that day. I dislike the entire week.” 

“I understand completely,” Hawke said. “And if you wanted to pick a different day, say in early Firstfall--” 

“I do not.” Fenris looked away from Hawke, and then looked back at Hawke. “He is a gift. He is... I can’t imagine my life without him. He deserves a celebration on the anniversary of his birth. As close to it as I can get. What I want is to celebrate it on Frumentum 27th, which I believe is the right date, and I want Cato to feel happy and normal. But what I need--what I _need_ , Hawke, or I can’t do that--is for you to understand. I need _someone_ to understand what I will be feeling that day, and just how complicated my relationship to Cato is, and if I--I don’t think it will come to this, but--if I need to leave, I may need you to lie for me and monitor the children yourself for the rest of the party.” 

“I can do that,” Hawke said immediately. “Fenris, what you’re doing is very brave, and I will do everything in my power to make this day good for both of you.” 

“Thank you,” Fenris said.


	5. Act 2 - Part 2

When asked what he wanted for his birthday, Cato’s immediate reply was “Cake!”

Hawke chuckled. “Well, of course there’ll be cake. But what would you like as gifts?”

Cato’s eyes got wide. “I get gifts?”

“Of course,” Hawke said. “All of your friends get gifts on their birthdays. Why wouldn’t you?”

Cato looked at Fenris with wide eyes. “I _really_ get to have a birthday?” he confirmed, for the fifth time. “You’re not going to take it back?”

Fenris nodded. “You really get to have a birthday,” he said. There was a beat of silence, and then he added, “Forever. Every year. This is your birthday, and I am not going to take it away from you.”

Cato’s jaw dropped. “Every year?!” he repeated excitedly. “I get to have one every year?!”

Fenris nodded. “Every year.”

Cato fist-pumped. “Yes!” 

“So what do you want?” Hawke asked again. 

Cato thought about it. “Books,” he said after a minute. “I don’t have enough books.” 

“Hawke gives you books all the time,” Fenris pointed out. 

“And then I read them. So I need more.” He paused. “Also a ball? Corwin had one but then all the air got out and Hawke and I couldn’t fix it, so now we don’t have a ball.” They had _almost_ fixed the ball. It might have worked, if only Cato had been able to stop the inflation spell as soon as Hawke told him to. As it was, they had started with a deflated ball and ended up with an exploded one. It was probably for the best. Corwin might have asked _how_ they fixed the ball, if they’d actually managed it.

“Alright then!” Hawke said. “That settles it! Invite your friends!” 

Preparing for the party was simple enough. As Hawke had said, it didn’t take much to impress a runaway slave and a group of children from the alienage. Hawke insisted on paying for the cake, despite Fenris’ objections. Hawke wanted Fenris to save his very limited amount of money to buy Cato the ball that he wanted. Fenris was an illegal immigrant in one of the most xenophobic cities in Thedas, being actively hunted by slavers. Being an elf probably didn’t help either. Hawke knew that he struggled just to keep himself and Cato fed and warm, even with a stolen mansion. Fenris didn’t need the struggle of paying for a party, especially not while Hawke lived in Hightown legitimately and had plenty of money to spare and no child he’d rather spend it on. 

Fenris handled the planning very well, even cheerfully, right up until the day before the party. Cato didn’t show up for his lessons that day. Hawke didn't usually worry about Cato showing up exactly on time, even now that Cato walked over by himself. Hightown was safe enough in broad daylight, and Fenris knew very well that Cato was less likely to be harassed on his own than he was to be harassed with Fenris. For Cato to be a full hour late, however, was concerning. 

He let himself into Fenris’ house, as was their way, and called out: “Fenris? Cato?” 

“Up here!” The reply came from Cato, but he didn’t sound terribly alarmed. 

Hawke followed the noise until he found Fenris and Cato in Fenris’ room. 

Nothing was wrong, at first glance. Fenris was sitting on his unmade bed in full armor, and Cato was standing by the door, dressed and reasonably clean, but pouting. There was no blood, and no sign of any sort of struggle. The most distressing thing in the room was a piece of charred chicken, sharing a plate beside Fenris with a handful of grapes. 

“ _Hawke_ ,” Cato said, before Fenris could even ask what was wrong, “Fenris says he’s not sick, but he won’t leave this room or eat the food I brought him.”

“I am not hungry,” Fenris said. “Nor do I desire anything outside of this room.” Fenris took a long, slow breath. “Hawke is probably here because you’re late for your lessons.” 

“Sorry,” Cato said softly. 

“Lessons are canceled today,” Hawke said. “Call it an early birthday present.” 

“Okay.” Cato didn’t sound very excited about this gift.

“Cato, can I talk to Fenris alone?” Hawke asked. 

Cato nodded. “Tell him to go see the healer,” Cato said. “I don’t know how to fix stuff on the inside. I can only do scrapes and stuff.” Then he left, and shut the door behind him. 

Hawke walked over to the bed and sat down with Fenris. 

“I told him to go,” Fenris said. “He wouldn’t listen. I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not worried about that,” Hawke said. “Are you okay?” 

Fenris was quiet for several seconds, and then he said, “I drank all of the Aggregio.” 

Hawke squinted at him. “Today?” 

“No!” Fenris said. “Weeks ago. And not all of it at once. I drank the last bottle the night I told you about Cato’s birth, and I didn’t buy more.” 

Wine? Was this really about wine? Hawke was certain that it wasn’t, but if wine was something Fenris was willing to talk about it, Hawke would indulge him. 

“I can buy you more wine,” Hawke said. “Would it help?” 

“Why would you do that?” 

Hawke shrugged. “I’ve known you for three years now and haven’t gotten _you_ a single birthday present--” 

“Not today,” Fenris said. “Not ever, actually. In the spring, but...” he shook his head. “Not ever. I don't owe anyone _that_.” 

“Alright,” Hawke said. “Then because you’re my friend, and you’re having a hard day, and wine would help.” 

Fenris nodded. 

Hawke walked to the door and opened it. “Cato--” but he hit the boy with the door. 

Cato gave no indication that it hurt. “Is Fenris okay?” he asked. 

“I--Yes,” Hawke said. “Did you hear any of that?” Had he said anything that might have revealed Fenris’ secret? 

“No,” Cato said. Hawke believed him, and so relaxed slightly. 

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver, and gave it to Cato. “Go to Ewart in the market and pick up a bottle of wine for us.” 

“That’ll make Fenris feel better?” 

“That’ll make Fenris feel better.” 

Cato raced for the door, and Hawke went back into Fenris’ bedroom. 

“I thought it might feel better this year,” Fenris said. “We’re not doing this for me, of course, but I had hoped that if I focused on the good that came of it and really tried to _celebrate_ it...” Fenris shook his head. “But it has never felt this _bad_ before. Does that make me horrible?” 

“It makes you a person,” Hawke said. “One who has been putting on a brave face through three weeks of talking about your trauma every day, and now it’s catching up to you.” 

Hawke sat next to Fenris again, and he wondered if he should put his arm around Fenris, or pat Fenris on the back. What would be helpful in this situation? He didn’t move.

“Are you afraid to leave the room?” 

Fenris shook his head. “Afraid is not the right word. I just don’t want to. I can do tomorrow. I have to try, at least. But I see no reason why I have to do anything today, and I really don’t want to.” 

“You want to get drunk,” Hawke said. 

“Right here, in this room, on this bed.” Fenris looked Hawke over. “Preferably with you.” 

“Anything to make you feel better.” 

“That would make me feel much better,” Fenris said. “Though, while you’re being helpful, I don’t think Cato has had anything to eat today more substantial than bread and grapes...” 

“I’ll fix him something,” Hawke said. “But you have to eat too. No getting drunk on an empty stomach.” 

“As you say.” Fenris nodded down at the plate to his other side. “Cato tried to make me lunch.” He chuckled. “He pulled the chicken out of the icebox and brought it in raw, and when I told him it needed to be cooked, he set it on fire.” 

“Well,” Hawke said, “I’m not training him for a career as a chef.” 

“No,” Fenris said. Then he looked serious. “What _do_ good southern apostates do when they’re not off saving the city?” 

Hawke shrugged. “My father was a farmer. I was a mercenary for a little while. Anders runs a clinic... I think Merrill just found an empty house and started living in it.” Hawke and Fenris laughed together. “If Bethany had any big career goals, she never shared them. We do what we have to to survive. Long term career goals don’t really factor into it.” 

Fenris sighed. “He’s an elf-blooded immigrant apostate runaway slave. I worry about his future.” 

“He’ll figure something out,” Hawke said. “He’s a smart kid. And you’ve got a long time before you have to--” 

There was a thunder of footsteps and Cato raced into the room, bottle of wine in hand. 

Hawke took the bottle and let Cato keep the change. “I’m going to make food,” he said, standing and heading for the door, wine in hand. “I’ll bring you your drink when I bring you your food, and we can eat and drink together. Acceptable?” 

“Acceptable,” Fenris said. 

Hawke probably should have sent Cato for meat as well. Since Cato had burned the chicken, there was very little meat left in the house. Hawke was able to whip up a soup with what he found, though, and that would at least get some vegetables in Cato’s stomach and _something_ in Fenris’ stomach. 

To Fenris’ credit, Hawke noticed that he ate the grapes Cato had brought him while Hawke was making food. He ate the soup, too, dutifully, and between drinks of wine. 

They talked about Lothering. Or, rather, Hawke talked, and Fenris listened and asked the occasional clarifying question. They talked about the repairs that Fenris knew he still needed to make to the mansion, but couldn't bring himself to do. They talked about elves with poison gas and princes in the Chantry putting out hits on mercenary groups. They talked a great deal about mercenaries. They did not talk about Minrathous, or Danarius, or Cato’s birthday. 

Cato himself sat with them for a little bit, but soon seemed reassured that Fenris was indeed feeling better, and grew bored of the adult conversation and went off to play. 

Hawke left them as the sun went down, and Fenris seemed alright. Hawke would send Bodhain over with a hangover cure first thing in the morning, and hope for the best..

~*~

Hawke had his gifts for Cato on the table before Cato and Fenris came over the next morning. The cake bought and retrieved, and also prominently displayed on the table. It looked nice, and Hawke liked the excuse to have his home busy and full of people.

Cato’s jaw dropped when he saw it. “All of this is for me?!” 

“All of this is for you,” Hawke confirmed. 

Lila and Carly, a pair of elven sisters who were about a year older and a year younger than Cato, arrived first, dropped off by their mother on her way to work as the maid of one of Hawke’s neighbors. Corwin came a bit later, having walked himself. His parents seemed to feel the same way Fenris did about elf-blooded children being better off alone in Hightown than with their parents. His gift was bigger than the one the girls brought.

Hawke and Fenris decided to let the children play for a few hours before having cake, and they ran through the backyard, making sure the dog got his exercise for the day. Sage was, apparently, a fearsome dragon. He understood his role as only a mabari could, and chased the children around the yard happily, careful to let them win until Cato and Lila ‘slayed’ him. 

Fenris looked fine, so far. 

“Doing alright?” Hawke asked, just to confirm it. “After yesterday...” 

“Yesterday was the hard one,” Fenris said. “Cato was born in the very early morning. Assuming I’ve got the days right, _technically_ the anniversary is over for me.” Fenris took a deep breath. He sounded like he was trying very hard to convince himself of what he was saying. “At this time ten years ago, I was in bed sleeping. There's nothing upsetting about that.” 

Hawke reached out and took Fenris’ hand. 

Fenris looked at Hawke’s hand around his and narrowed his eyes in confusion, but just when Hawke was about to let go, Fenris squeezed back. There was only a little bit of skin-to-skin contact, since Fenris was wearing his gauntlets, but it seemed to be the thought that counted. 

Fenris was quiet for a moment, and then asked, “Is there a synonym for birthday that doesn’t use the word ‘birth’?” 

Hawke shrugged. “‘Anniversary of your first day of existence’? ‘Celebration of another year of your life’? Or, I suppose, ‘a decade of your life,’ in Cato’s case.” 

Fenris nodded. “I like it,” he said with a small laugh in his voice. “Let’s use that.” 

“It’ll sound pretty awkward in the song.” 

The small smile that had been tugging at the corners of Fenris’ mouth vanished. “Right,” he said. “That song you Fereldans sing...” 

“Not just Fereldans,” Hawke said. “You’d really never heard it before we met? Didn’t Danarius have birthdays?” 

“Of course Danarius had birthdays,” Fenris said. “Even I had--” He stopped himself. “But no one ever felt the need to sing about it.” 

Hawke sucked his teeth. “We don’t _have_ to sing,” he said. “I don’t think Cato would notice if we just went straight to cake and presents.” 

Fenris shook his head. “No,” he said. “Sing. Say the B word. This isn’t about me.” 

“This wouldn’t be happening without you,” Hawke pointed out. 

“It also wouldn’t be happening without Danarius, but it is hardly _his_ party.” 

Hawke flinched. “Your comfort matters too,” Hawke said. “That’s all I’m trying to say.”

“Thank you,” Fenris said, “But I’m fine.” 

And yet, when they called the children in and the singing started, Fenris turned green and slipped out into the courtyard. 

As much as Hawke wanted to follow, he remembered what Fenris had asked him to do. He stayed. He lit candles on the cake, and told Cato to make a wish. 

Cato thought about it for a moment, and the candles went out with one quick breath. 

Hawke and his mother distributed the cake to the children, but Cato had noticed Fenris’ absence. “Where’s Fenris? Fenris has to get cake too!” 

Hawke forced a smile. “Fenris is still not feeling completely better,” Hawke said. “He stepped outside for a minute to get some air.” 

“Is it the same thing he had yesterday?” 

“Yes,” Hawke said, because that was the truth, and because it might lead into a convenient excuse if Fenris wasn’t actually up for returning to the party. 

“Will you tell him to go see Anders now? He says Anders makes him better if he gets hurt in a fight. He could make him better now.” 

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Hawke said. “I think he feels much better today than he did yesterday, and that he’ll feel even better tomorrow. But I want you to go eat with your friends, and I’ll bring him some cake and check in on him.” 

Cato nodded. “Okay, but if he isn’t feeling better--” 

“--I’ll tell him to go see Anders.” 

With that promise made, Cato did go join his friends, and Hawke picked up two pieces of cake and headed into the garden. 

Fenris watched him approach. He was sitting on one of the benches in the sun, looking fine, for the most part. Hawke noticed the goosebumps on Fenris’ arms, but he couldn’t tell if they were from whatever Fenris was feeling, or simply because Fenris was not appropriately dressed for spending more than thirty seconds outside on a chilly afternoon in late Harvestmere. 

“Do you want to come in?” Hawke asked.

“No.” 

Alright then... “Do you want cake?” Unless the cake was just going to remind him of everything? Hawke regretted this decision as soon as he’d made it. 

“Yes,” Fenris said, putting Hawke’s fear to rest.

Hawke sat down next to Fenris and passed one of the cakes to him. “Cato blew out all the candles,” Hawke said, looking at the ground awkwardly, wishing he knew how to make this better, but remembering Fenris' words all those months ago. This wasn't something Hawke could just fix, no matter how much he wanted to. Clearly, this wasn't something that _Fenris_ could just fix. Hawke knew how hard he had been trying. 

“So he gets a wish?” Fenris asked, smiling slightly. “Did he say what he wanted?” 

“You’re not supposed to say what you want,” Hawke said, digging into his own cake. “If you do, it won’t come true.” 

“Ah,” Fenris said. “Cato knows the rules to these things better than I do.” 

“Cato goes to more proper birthday parties than you,” Hawke said. Before Fenris could object, Hawke said, “Varric and Isabela’s ‘Drink until you forget how old you are’ parties don’t count. You’ve got me and Aveline. And you’d have Merrill too, if you ever once accepted her invitation.” 

Fenris shrugged. “I can never find a sitter.” 

Hawke snorted. “And she really does appreciate that you still bother to make that excuse.” 

Fenris was picking at his cake. That was a good sign. Though Hawke finished his cake long before Fenris, he waited patiently until Fenris finished before suggesting that they go back inside so that Cato could unwrap his presents. Fenris agreed. 

It wasn't a bad haul, for Cato's very first birthday. Cato got the ball he wanted from Fenris, books from Hawke and Hawke’s mother, figurines from Bodhain and Sandal, a flying disc from Corwin, and the girls got him an elven game involving triangles that he had to take apart. None of it was terribly flashy or expensive, but Cato couldn't have cared less. He'd grown up playing with simple toys. Having toys at all, let alone new ones, was still something Cato was adjusting to. He hugged every person in the room who got him something, and didn't seem disappointed by a single one of the gifts. 

Fenris was fine after that. The children went back outside to play with the ball and the flying disc, and Hawke and Fenris watched them from the comfort of the other side of the glass door. They stopped saying the ‘B’ word, and Fenris felt better, and Cato was happy. 

At least, he was until the party ended. 

Cato seemed sadder than Hawke would have expected when the girls’ mother got off work and stopped by to pick them up. It wasn't as if he was never going to see them again, but he watched them leave as if all hope and joy in the world had just died. With some encouraging, he continued to at least make a show of playing with Corwin and Sandal, until Corwin’s father, fearful of Corwin walking all the way to the alienage by himself at night, came to get Corwin. 

Cato stood still and silent as his best friend walked toward the door. 

“Cato, say goodbye to Corwin,” Fenris said gently. 

“Oh,” the boy said softly. “Goodbye, Corwin.”

Corwin frowned, and Hawke wondered if he knew what was wrong. “Bye, Cato,” he said softly, as his father led him out the door with a firm hand on his back. 

The door closed, and it was uncomfortably quiet in the mansion for several seconds. Then, Cato blinked several times in a row, and Hawke knew what was happening before the first tear fell. 

“What’s wrong, Cato?” Fenris asked, coming closer. He opened his arms slightly, an unspoken invitation, and Cato took a few steps toward Fenris to close the gap between them and cry in his arms.

“The candles are stupid!” Cato said, breaths coming out hard. “I wished really hard and I didn’t tell anyone, and I still didn’t get what I wanted!”

“Not yet,” Fenris said, “but you might get it later.”

“No!” Cato said. “It’s too late!”

Fenris looked over Cato's shoulder at Hawke, and though Hawke could see how alarmed Fenris was, he didn't know how to help. “What did you want?” Fenris asked, stroking the child’s hair. 

“I wanted my mom to come to the party! And she didn’t!” the tidal wave of tears hit, and Cato buried his face in Fenris’ armor and sobbed. Fenris froze, until Hawke managed to catch Fenris' eye and snap him out of it. Then, Fenris held his son close with one hand and stroked his hair with the other. 

“Cato...” Fenris said. “... Your mother loves you… and would have given anything for you to get everything you wanted today, especially that...”

“Then why isn’t she here?!” Cato asked. 

Fenris opened his mouth and struggled for a moment to find the words. Hawke was certain he’d have ran, if doing so hadn’t meant letting go of Cato. Fenris drew in and let out a slow, shaky breath of his own, and finally said, “There are things your mother just can’t do, Cato. I’m sorry...” 

“Is she dead?” Cato asked, leaning back to look at Fenris’ face. “Because I’m older now. You can tell me if she’s dead.” 

Fenris sighed and shook his head. He wouldn’t meet Cato’s eyes. “She’s not dead,” he said. “She has just...” Then Fenris changed his mind suddenly, and looked Cato in the eyes. “...been through some very difficult things, and made a lot of mistakes, and she doesn’t know how to be the parent that you deserve. She’s worried that if she tried, she would just hurt you.”

“She wouldn’t!” Cato said quickly. “I would--”

“Cato,” Fenris said, sharply enough to stop the child mid-sentence. Fenris lightly squeezed Cato’s shoulder, and said, “I understand how much it hurts to be missing such an important part of yourself. I would not do this to you if I didn’t believe it was what was best for you. I--your mother and I--would do anything to protect you.” 

Cato sniffled. “Would my mom really hurt me?” 

“Not on purpose,” Fenris said, shaking his head. “Never ever on purpose.” 

“That’s okay,” he said. “Sometimes I hurt people too.” 

“It’s not the same, Cato.” 

“Will you at least tell me about her?” Cato asked. “You never want to talk about her.” 

Fenris nodded, and his lip quivered slightly. “Okay,” he said. “Not everything, but... Okay.”

“She’s a slave?” 

“Yes,” Fenris said. 

“So is that why she’s not here?” Cato asked. “She can’t get away?” 

Fenris faltered, then tried again and said, “She’s been trying to get away from Master for a very long time, but it’s very difficult.” 

Cato nodded. “She's a mage, like me?” 

Fenris shook his head. “No, she's not a mage.” 

“Mages are born to non-mage parents all the time,” Hawke cut in, rescuing Fenris before Cato could get the question out. “We still don't entirely understand why some people are mages and others aren't, but it's not as simple as 'You'll be a mage if one of your parents is.'” 

Hawke could see Cato thinking about that for a few seconds, and he saw him accept it before he looked back at Fenris. “But... she’s human?” 

“No,” Fenris said, looking Cato in the eyes. “She’s an elf.”

Cato's brow creased. “So why am I human?” 

Fenris hesitated, and Hawke saw the fear in his eyes and hoped that Cato didn’t. “Your father was,” Fenris finally admitted. “When a human and an elf have a child, the child is human.”

“Is my father--”

“I can’t speak for your father,” Fenris said, too quickly. “I won’t.” Cato flinched, and Fenris softened immediately. “I’m sorry. I...”

“That’s okay, Fenris,” Cato said, not looking like it was. He looked at Fenris for a few seconds, and then said, “Maybe next year she’ll come?” 

“I know she wants to,” Fenris said. “I can’t promise it will happen.” 

“But maybe?”

“Maybe,” Fenris allowed. He glanced at Hawke, begging for rescue with his eyes. 

“Cato...” Hawke said. “Do you want more cake?” 

Cato nodded. “Yeah,” he said, without real enthusiasm. 

Hawke led him into the kitchen and delivered on the promised cake, and a glass of milk to go with it, and then he went and met Fenris out in the yard. 

“That didn’t go well,” Fenris said simply. 

“It did,” Hawke said, gently, though he was contradicting Fenris. “The ending was a little rough, but Cato seemed to be having a good time for most of the day.” 

Fenris shook his head. “When he was a baby... I couldn’t even think of him as my child. I only recently got to a point where I could. _My son_... but I... I just wanted to pretend that that day had never happened, and now… ” 

“That’s understandable,” Hawke said, placing a hand on Fenris’ shoulder. 

“For whom?” Fenris asked. He looked at Hawke’s hand like he wasn’t sure why it was there, but let it remain. “I love Cato more than I ever thought possible, but it took time for me to come to this point, and in that time, I lost things that can never be recovered. All those months before he started walking, he had to be carried everywhere, but I never once picked him up. _Danarius_ held him the morning he was born, if only to do tests on him, but I did not pick him up once throughout his entire infancy. How am I supposed to explain that to him?”

“It’s not your fault, Fenris.” 

Now Fenris stepped away from Hawke’s hand, though whether that was because Fenris didn’t want the comfort or didn’t think he deserved it, Hawke wasn’t sure. He kept his hand at his side while Fenris spoke. “Isn’t it? Danarius never banned me from seeing Cato. He was right there, living under the same roof, and I never reached out to him. Other slave mothers would have gone to him when they could, spent every moment of rest with him, but I simply never felt any desire to.” Fenris sighed. “The _proper_ mothers that Danarius owned judged me for it. Particularly the one raising my son. I can’t blame her for that. They thought I was a coldly ambitious pet who cared for nothing but pleasing his master. Perhaps they were right. Either way, I was a terrible parent and might have been content to be so all of Cato’s life, if not for a random chance.”

Hawke shook his head. “You were traumatized. You had every right to need time before you could bond with Cato.”

“And I’m supposed to ask a child to honor that right? No. I cannot presume to be Cato’s parent now after I abandoned him as an infant. And worse.”

“What do you mean?” 

Fenris shifted from one foot to the other. Hawke was pretty sure he was burning off anxious energy, not uncomfortable, though it was a wonder that he wasn’t freezing, barefoot on the cold stone like he was. “When we were on the run, I truly started to bond with him and care for him as a person, but it was difficult. He woke up screaming in the middle of the night nearly every night until some time after we arrived in Kirkwall. He still does, sometimes, but it’s less frequent. Whenever I left him alone during those years on the run, he would run into my arms when I came back for him. Then he would bite me. The biting went on for years as well. You experienced it yourself. 

“He didn’t do those things when we were with the Fog Warriors. He didn’t do those things in Minrathous, either, to my knowledge. I fear that I... hurt him, in ways I don’t understand and he is too young to verbalize.”

“You’ve done the best you can, Fenris. That’s all anyone can ask of you.” 

“Perhaps,” Fenris said. “I am not sure that matters.” Fenris sighed. “He's not even _old enough_ to hear the story.”

“Not the version you told to me, no,” Hawke agreed. “But there might be a different way of putting it.” 

Fenris shifted from one foot to the other and looked up at the darkening sky. “I should tell him. I know I should. I’d give anything to know who _my_ mother is, and if she was there the whole time and didn’t tell... but... He has fantasies of a loving couple who never wanted to abandon him in the first place finding him and filling a void in his life. I understand those fantasies. I’ve had them myself. To tell him the truth, I have to shatter those fantasies and tell him that what he has instead is a father who views him as a property and a mother who has failed him on every level since his birth, and for years was fine with doing so. It will break his heart. Isn't he better off with the fantasies?”

“I don't know,” Hawke admitted. “You don’t have to do it now,” 

“No,” Fenris said. “I don’t.” He leaned back against the wall and sighed. “Thank you again for doing all of this, Hawke. It really has meant a lot to me and to Cato.” 

“It’s been my pleasure,” Hawke said. 

Fenris forced a smile. “I suppose you want us out of your hair.” 

Fenris couldn’t actually think Hawke ever wanted that, could he? “Not at all,” he said, opening the door and gesturing for Fenris to go in. “If you want to stay a while longer, you’re welcome to.” Hawke had a feeling that Fenris wasn’t in the mood to go back to Danarius’ mansion, though if it was what he wanted, Hawke of course wouldn’t stop him.

“I would like that,” Fenris said. 

By the time they got back to the kitchen, Cato had finished his cake, and seemed only slightly more cheerful for having done so. His face was still red, and he was quiet, but his eyes were dry and he looked up at them when they entered the room. 

“Is it time to go home now?” he asked. 

Fenris swallowed. “No,” he said. He looked at the book on legends that Hawke had gotten Cato, in a pile on the table with all the other gifts, and picked it up. “Can we read one or two of these together?” Fenris asked. 

“I don’t need help reading anymore,” Cato said flatly. 

“I know,” Fenris said. “ _I_ do.” 

Cato blinked at him. “Okay,” he said. 

“Can Hawke join us, if he wants?” Fenris asked. 

“Sure,” Cato said. So they took the book into the library and they sat down on the sofa, with Cato between the two men and the book open on his lap, and they took turns reading pages and decompressed. By the time they finished with the first story, both Cato and Fenris seemed to be feeling much better, and when they finally left Hawke’s mansion, with all of Cato’s gifts wrapped up and slung over his shoulder, Cato was smiling. Fenris lingered by the door just a little bit too long, but assured Hawke that he _did_ want to go home now, and that he was going to be alright.


	6. Act 2 - Part 3

Hawke had just wanted to buy a rune. Merrill said that Master Ilen sometimes had nature runes in stock, and Hawke wanted one of those, so he'd gathered up Fenris, Varric, and Isabela, who seemed to unnerve the Dalish the least, and headed up the Sundermount. 

He hadn’t expected the ambush. He hadn’t expected the quick fight and the reminder that Fenris was still considered stolen property, and that his master really would hunt him to end the world--and very nearly had. 

He had expected the terror in Fenris’ eyes, but he had not expected to sense his own terror mirrored in it. 

“Cato,” Hawke heard himself say automatically. Fenris had left Cato at Hawke's house, to play with Sandal and Sage. That was better than him being alone, but not by much, and there was no guarantee that he was still there. “We need to go back and find him and--” 

“No,” Fenris said, looking at the bodies around them. “They’re not in the city. They set up a trap for me _here_. If we go back now, we’ll lead them right to him! We have to go to the slaver caverns _now_ and kill Hadriana.” 

Hawke was not going to argue. They left immediately, and it was only because Varric and Isabela kept cool heads that Fenris and Hawke didn’t push their bodies to the limit just running for the caverns. “Keep your strength up,” Varric had warned. “It’s no use getting there quickly if you’re too tired to actually fight once you’re there.” 

He was right, of course. That didn’t make it any easier to listen. 

Still, the lifeless elven bodies they found haunted him in ways that others did not. Would they have been able to save more than one if they'd run the whole way? 

(Dead slaves. Dead elven slaves. Dead elven slaves were were not as strange as Hawke wanted them to be. They reminded him of possibilities he preferred not to think about.) 

Then there was Orana, the last left alive. The betrayal in Fenris’ eyes when Hawke tried to help her was yet another sharp reminder of how open these wounds still were for Fenris. “I didn’t realize you were in the market for a slave!” 

“I offered her a job, Fenris!” 

Hawke had watched Fenris deflate. Hawke was hurt, though he tried to tell himself he shouldn’t be. He’d have liked to think that he’d earned Fenris’ trust after three years, but how trusting could he ask Fenris to be of _anyone_ while they were mere rooms away from his master’s apprentice? It wasn’t Fenris’ fault, but it was a wound Hawke would have to tend to later nevertheless.

Defeating Hadriana had been easy. The funny thing about blood magic was that it wasn’t actually all that _good_. For all that it was touted as a source of incredible tower, Hawke had met few mages who wielded it who stood out in his memory as particularly impressive mages, and those that had, he had a sense would have been particularly powerful mages even without blood magic. 

Hawke was a better mage than Hadriana, in more ways than one. Fenris was a skilled warrior, and Varric and Isabela were talented in their own areas. The fight was fast and bloody, and Hadriana was left to beg and bargain for her life. 

Hawke felt nothing when Fenris went back on his word and killed her. Maybe he should have disapproved, but he couldn't bring himself to.

His attempts to comfort Fenris were shot down and harshly rewarded with shouts and barbed comments about magic, which Hawke took without complaint. Fenris was hurting, and Hawke wanted to make it better but didn’t know how. Danarius knew where Fenris was, and worse, Danarius was dangling the thing Fenris craved most in this world in front of Fenris, hoping he’d jump right into a trap. Now was not the time to lecture Fenris about being kinder to mages. 

“Watch Cato. I need to be alone.” Hawke didn’t know if Fenris wanted that for his own benefit or for Cato’s, but it was best for everyone, so Hawke quickly agreed, and headed home. 

Cato was playing jacks with Sandal on the parlor floor. Or, rather, Cato was playing jacks and Sandal was bouncing his ball against the wall and completely ignoring the jacks. It was good to see them both happy. 

Cato stopped when he heard Hawke, and stared up at Hawke silently for a moment. 

_He’s going to ask where Fenris is_ , Hawke thought, and he realized that he didn’t really know what to tell Cato.

But what Cato actually said was, “There’s a woman waiting for you in the kitchen. She says she’s your slave now.” There was something heavy in the child’s voice. Was it caution? Was that an accusation? The pale knife-stoke scars were clearly visible on Cato's arms. They'd been given to him so long ago that they couldn't possibly still be painful, but they were still there. Always there. Hawke wondered if Cato could still remember receiving them. 

“She’s not my slave, Cato,” Hawke said. He saw the boy relax slightly, and he went on: “I’m hoping to hire her as a servant.” 

Cato softened. Like mother like son, it seemed. “That’s good. She’s nice. Also, where’s Fenris?”

There it was. Cato always asked all of the questions eventually, just not always in the order Hawke expected them. “He needed to take care of some things,” Hawke said. “You’re going to stay here tonight.”

Cato frowned. “I know what that means,” he said. “It means slavers found us and he has to go kill them.”

“No,” Hawke said. _It means he killed them already and needs some time to clear his head._

“So he’s not gonna come back covered in blood?”

“Fenris comes back covered in blood all the time,” Hawke pointed out. 

“It’s different when it’s slavers,” Cato said. “That means they’re after us again, and we have to leave.”

Hawke sighed. “You’re safe, Cato,” Hawke promised. “And you’re not going anywhere.” He smirked. “I can’t lose my best apprentice.”

“I’m your _only_ apprentice,” Cato said, but he smiled at the corners of his mouth.

“All the more reason why I can’t let Fenris take you away from me.” He didn't give Cato time to argue with that one. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got a bed for you, and we’ll see what we can do about finding something for you to sleep in.” 

The conversation with Orana went as well as could be expected. She thanked Hawke for freeing her and promised to be a good servant. Hawke had no idea how to judge the caliber of a servant, having only had one in his entire life, but he didn’t expect to be disappointed in Orana’s work. She explained that she had already begun cleaning and offered to make Hawke something to eat, but it was obvious to Hawke that _she_ needed a bed right now more than anyone else in the house. Hawke couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to have a parent murdered by blood mages. 

Getting Orana to believe that _yes_ , he wanted her to sleep _here_ , in _this_ bed, and that the room he took her to was going to be _her_ room, where she could keep her things and sleep in _this_ bed every night, was a bit more difficult. Hawke almost relented and let her sleep on the couch, just because she seemed so distressed by the concept of having her own room with a bed that was more than just a mat on the floor, but he talked himself out of it. He needed to make it clear now that she was not his slave and he was not going to treat her like one. Compromising on that even a little now could just lead to both of them forming bad habits, and was unlikely to put Cato and Fenris at ease.

The beds were made quickly, and Hawke was able to find old shirts of Carvers that dwarfed both Orana and Cato enough to be worn as nightgowns. Orana had had a long day and was ready for bed, whatever she claimed, so Hawke bade her goodnight. Even if she didn’t sleep, some time alone would probably be good for her. Once Hawke had explained to his mother what had happened, his mother made some tea to bring up to Orana, for what little comfort that would give her, and she was left alone with her feelings.

Cato was a different story. He was more difficult. He thanked Hawke for the shirt, but didn’t even want to put it on. Hawke acquiesced to his request to stay up a little later, but after an extra 90 minutes of play time, it was late, and Cato was clearly tired.

Yet Cato persisted: “Just a little longer! Please?”

“Cato, no,” Hawke said. “If I let you stay up any later, you’re either going to be exhausted in the morning or sleep through half of it.”

“But what if Fenris comes back for me?”

Hawke’s shoulders dropped. “Oh, is that what this is about? Cato, he asked me to look after you tonight. I don’t think he’s coming back until morning, and you’ll want to be well-rested when he _does_ come back for you.”

“But... but what if...” Cato trailed off. Hawke wasn’t sure if he was trying to ask what would happen if Fenris came back, or if Fenris didn’t come back. 

“Everything is fine, Cato,” Hawke assured him again. Cato didn’t look convinced, though, and Hawke gave in: “Hadriana came to Kirkwall,” he explained. 

“Hadriana?” There was no recognition in Cato’s eyes. Then again, he hadn’t known Danarius’ name either, the first time Hawke had said it. 

“She was your master’s apprentice,” Hawke explained. “Dark hair. Blue eyes. Do you remember her?” 

Cato shook his head. 

“Well, Fenris did.” 

“And now he’s going to kill her?” 

“No,” Hawke said. He stopped himself before he said more, unsure of how Cato would take the news. 

It didn’t matter: “Because he’s already done it?” 

Hawke could lie. He could tell Cato that Fenris and Hadriana made a deal, and they both kept their end of the bargain, and Hadriana had left Kirkwall. Would that be comforting, or did Cato want to hear that the danger had gone away? 

“Thought so,” Cato said. “So then why is he still out there? Is our master...” Cato’s voice tightened at the word. The word was something terrible and haunting, and it had been on Cato’s mind far more today than it should have been.

“Cato, if I thought there was _any_ chance of that, I’d be out there with him,” Hawke said. “Everyone is safe. I think seeing Hadriana again just brought some stuff up.”

Cato scrunched up his face. “He got sick?” 

“No,” Hawke said. “Emotionally.”

“Oh.” 

That turned into a solid minute of silence, in which Hawke kept hoping that Cato would agree to go to bed. 

He didn’t. 

Finally, Hawke sighed. “Put your pajamas on, pick out a book, and you can _read_ in bed, okay?” Hawke knew Cato. The boy could be stubborn. Sometimes, it was better to bend a little. 

“...Okay.” Cato nodded, and stood up. 

Hawke checked on him an hour later and found him fast asleep. After levitating the book gently out from under Cato’s head and blowing out the candle, he went to the library to curl up with a book of his own. For all that he had argued with Cato, Hawke understood the desire to stay up. It hadn't been the sort of day he'd have an easy time getting to sleep after. 

Hours went by. A full chapter after the Chantry bells sounded 2:00am, Hawke heard a soft, almost bashful knock on the library door. 

It didn’t _have_ to be Fenris. It could have been Cato, or Orana, or even Bodhain. (It certainly wasn’t Sandal or Hawke’s mother.) It could have been, but Hawke knew that it wasn’t, and he quickly stood and opened the door. 

It was Fenris, looking tense but tired, and not meeting Hawke’s eyes. 

“You weren't in your room, so I thought...” Fenris took a deep breath. “Where is Cato?” 

“In bed, sleeping,” Hawke said. 

Fenris nodded. “Can he stay? I would rather not wake him.” 

“Of course he can stay,” Hawke said. “You can too, if you’d rather not be alone.” 

Fenris shook his head. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re a good friend, Hawke... and I owe you an apology.” 

“Fenris, it’s--”

“No,” Fenris said. “It’s not fine. I took out my anger on you, undeservedly so. I was not myself. I’m sorry.” 

It still wasn’t a good time to talk about what Fenris had said. Hawke needed to make sure Fenris was okay first. “I had no idea where you were,” he said. “I was concerned.” 

Still, Fenris wouldn’t look at Hawke. “I needed to be alone,” he said. “When I was still a slave, Hadriana was a torment. She would ridicule me, deny my meals, hound my sleep... Because of her status, I was powerless to respond, and she knew it. The thought of her slipping out of my grasp now... I couldn’t let her go. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.” 

“What do you mean?” Hawke asked. 

“This... hate,” Fenris said. “I thought I’d gotten away from it, but it dogs me no matter where I go. To feel it again, to know it was they who planted it inside me... It was too much to bear... Bah! But I didn’t come here to burden you further.” He turned and began to walk away. 

“You don’t need to leave, Fenris!” Hawke said, reaching out and grabbing Fenris’ arm. 

Fenris immediately went cold. Hawke was blinded by blue light, and before his eyes could adjust, he was shoved backwards into the wall so hard that it knocked the air from his lungs and he saw stars. Reflexively, he cast a spell to stun everyone around him. While Fenris staggered around with his eyes glazed over, Hawke had a moment to regain his breath and vision. He didn’t want to hurt Fenris, but he also wasn’t about to let Fenris use him as a punching bag, or worse. He took several large steps away from Fenris and cast a barrier around himself, just in case. As Fenris started to come out of the effects of the stun spell, Hawke said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry...”repeatedly, hoping it would be the first thing to penetrate Fenris’ consciousness as he recovered.

“I get it,” Fenris said after six or so apologies. His voice was heavy with drowsiness, but clear enough to sound annoyed. He deactivated his markings and blinked at Hawke. “You are sorry. What I don’t understand is _why_.” His face twitched, and for a moment Hawke saw plainly all the hurt Fenris had been holding in all day, and his heart broke. “I attacked you. In your own home. I--” 

“It’s okay,” Hawke said. “I scared you. I get it. You weren’t attacking me, you were just defending yourself.” 

Fenris shook his head, first slowly, then more aggressively, trying to dismiss whatever thought was stuck there. The attempt failed, so instead he voiced the thought: “This is what I meant.” 

“What?” 

Fenris sighed. “This is what I meant!” he said. “The Magisters get their hands one something--on _me_ , on my child--and they destroy everything, or worse, condition _us_ to destroy it for them.” 

“You didn’t attack me, Fenris,” Hawke said. “You were frightened, and you defended yourself. That’s all.” 

“That’s all?!” Fenris echoed. “All you did was touch me, and I threw you into a wall! What if it hadn’t been you? What if it had been Cato?” 

“It wasn’t,” Hawke said. “And I don’t think it ever would be. You know your child, Fenris, and you would never hurt him. I don’t think you’d ever hurt _any_ child.”

Fenris snorted. “I have hurt children before, Hawke.” 

“By choice?” 

Fenris looked away. 

Hawke sighed. “If you’d been trying to hurt me, Fenris, I’d be dead.” He kept his voice calm as he said it, and he looked Fenris in the eyes. “You activated your markings. If you had really wanted me dead even for a moment, I never would have had the chance to stun you. I would be dead.” 

Fenris didn’t argue with him, which Hawke considered a victory. 

“But you didn’t want me dead. You didn’t want to hurt me. All you were trying to do was get away from me, and I don’t blame you for that.” 

Fenris smiled. “You are a better friend than I deserve, Hawke.” 

“I mean it. And please stay here tonight. I’m worried about you.” 

Fenris looked around sheepishly, as though the estate was limited to what was in sight. “Where would you have me sleep?” 

“Do you want to sleep right now?” 

Fenris looked at Hawke challengingly for a moment, and then said, “No. Honestly, I don’t want to sleep again until Danarius is dead.” 

“Then let’s just read instead.”

Fenris nodded and led the way, snatching the book he’d been working on off of the shelf on his way to their usual sofa. 

Like mother like son. Fenris’ voice was heavy and his reading much slower than usual by the end of the first chapter. Now that Hawke knew for a fact that everyone was safe, his own eyes were getting heavy, too. It was Fenris who had the good sense to mark his place in the book, close it, and put it safely on the end table, but neither of them had the energy to get up off the sofa, and Hawke wasn’t sure which of them nodded off first. 

Hawke woke to a strange coldness in his left arm. He tried to move it, couldn’t, and realized what had happened. 

Damn. 

He wanted to let Fenris sleep, but he had a feeling that casting even a simple levitation spell on Fenris right now would wake Fenris up and get him thrown into something again. Instead, Hawke put a hand on an unarmored part of Fenris’ arm and stroked it. “Fenris,” he said softly. Then, slightly more loudly, “Fenris...” 

Fenris jumped, but he didn’t attack. It was bright enough for Fenris to immediately see where he was. The candles Hawke had lit early in the night were still burning, and now their light was joined by the blue light of the rising sun. Fenris sat up slowly, looking around.

“Sorry,” Hawke said, moving his arm out from under Fenris and flexing it, knowing there was nothing to be done but accept the pain and wait for it to pass. “You were on my arm and it went to sleep. You can lie back down and go back to sleep if you want, or move to a bed. I think it’s still pretty early.” 

Fenris didn’t say a word. He just breathed heavily and laid back down, now with his head in Hawke’s lap. He didn’t seem to be trying to fall back asleep, though; He just seemed to be trying to wake up a little more. He blinked up at Hawke. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, once he’d woken up enough to process what Hawke had said. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s fine,” Hawke said, flexing his fingers, hoping that would help the blood remember that it need to flow to them. “Kind of nice, actually. Except the pain.” 

“Nice?” Fenris said. He chuckled, then tried to hide it in a cough, like he did when he was embarrassed. 

“Very nice,” Hawke said. 

Fenris sat up. He looked Hawke in the face for a moment, put a hand on Hawke’s shoulder, and leaned in close. Hawke knew what Fenris was about to do. He wanted him to do it. It had to come from Fenris, though, after everything that had happened yesterday, so Hawke held still. 

Fenris brought his lips to Hawke’s. Hawke could feel the slight tremble that Fenris fought to hold in. He could sense Fenris’ hesitancy, his fear, and he didn’t know if taking control would make things better or worse. 

Cautiously, he shifted their positions a bit, so that he had more leverage and Fenris was pinned beneath him, not uncomfortably, and not in any way Fenris couldn’t easily escape. 

It helped. Fenris went limp beneath Hawke, but as he did, Hawke saw the relief on Fenris’ face. He wanted this taken out of his hands. He wanted Hawke to be the one to make the decision, to put himself out there. He wanted Hawke to be the one to go too far, if one of them was going to go too far. Hawke considered what it meant that Fenris was giving him that, what it implied about how far Fenris was willing to go and how much he trusted Hawke. Putting himself in this position could not be easy for Fenris. 

He pushed his tongue into Fenris’ mouth slowly, still half expecting Fenris to pull away, but Fenris didn’t. He leaned in closer and responded to the kiss without challenging Hawke's dominance. Hawke wrapped his arms around Fenris’ body, at first to relieve some of the strain on Fenris’ muscles, but then he felt his hands wandering south. 

He should stop. It was only their first kiss. 

And yet it felt like their thousandth. Hawke had been so close to Fenris so often that he already knew every curve of Fenris’ body, exactly where Fenris liked to be touched and where Fenris didn’t like to be touched. 

Fenris made no objections to Hawke’s wandering hands. When they smoothly shifted over Fenris’ knee, from the outside of his leg to the inside, Fenris didn’t even seem to notice. When Hawke caressed up Fenris’ thigh, Fenris stopped. 

His big green eyes met Hawke’s, and they stared at each other, silently, for a long second. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Hawke asked.

Fenris shook his head. Then he said, “No.”

“What do you want?”

For a moment, Fenris looked like Cato before he shouted ‘No fair!’ Hawke was cheating: he’d taken control, but now he was making Fenris take responsibility anyway.

“There are _so many things_ that I want to do to you right now, Fenris,” Hawke said. “I need to know what I have your permission to do.”

That seemed to soothe Fenris, a little. Hawke had admitted he wanted to fuck Fenris; Fenris just had to agree. 

“I want you to strip me,” Fenris said. “And then... Please just be gentle. It’s been six years...”

He didn’t need to finish. That was good enough. 

Hawke smiled. “I promise.” He waved his hand and closed and locked the door with a blast of force magic, then ducked back down from another kiss, and when his hands began to roam again, Fenris’ hands covered them, and guided them to all the hidden creases and straps in Fenris’ armor, helping Hawke remove it, until Hawke saw nothing but tawny skin and swirling lyrium tattoos. He stared at them a moment, eyes wide, then caught himself. 

“How do you want me to handle them?” Hawke asked, resisting the urge to touch them. 

“However you like,”Fenris said. “Treat them like you would if you thought they were normal tattoos. It should be fine.”

“And can I prepare you with magic?”

“Please do,” Fenris said breathlessly. Hawke had no intention of making Fenris beg, not this time, but he'd love to do so someday. 

For now, he settled in between Fenris’ spread legs and whispered a spell to clean and lubricate Fenris. He didn’t have to put his hands on Fenris to cast it, so he kept his back straight and enjoyed watching Fenris buck and squirm as the magic did its work. When Fenris stilled, he knew the spell had done its job, and slowly pushed one finger inside of Fenris. 

Fenris was tight, but made no noise of objection, and when Hawke curled the finger slightly, he pushed back on it. 

“More?” Hawke asked. 

“More,” Fenris said. 

A second finger followed the first. Hawke scissored and wiggled them until he could get a third finger in, and then a fourth. When he pulled his fingers out, confident that Fenris could take everything Hawke wanted to give him that night, he wiped the lube on his fingers off onto the leg of his trousers, and then moved his hands to his belt buckle. 

But Fenris had sat up, and he caught Hawke’s hands. For a second, Hawke thought he was going to call the whole thing off, but then Fenris’ hands moved to Hawke’s belt, and he unbuckled it himself. He opened Hawke’s trousers and pulled them down as far as Hawke’s position allowed, exposing Hawke’s hard cock, and then neglected it to instead move in for another kiss and lift Hawke’s shirt. As soon as the kiss was broken, Fenris’ pulled Hawke’s shirt over his head, and there was nothing left for Hawke to do but stand and pull his trousers and underwear off as quickly as possible. He kicked his shoes off, and rejoined Fenris on the sofa. 

He had a bed upstairs. He was aware of that. It was a very nice bed with lots of room and curtains. It would also put them much closer to two people that they absolutely did not want to hear this, however, and moving now seemed silly. So, resigned to the fact that the bad decision was already made, Hawke returned to the sofa and put the tip of his cock inside of Fenris. He waited a moment, until Fenris nodded, and then he pushed in farther, until he was as deep as he could get inside of Fenris. 

Hawke watched Fenris’ chest move up and down with his deep breaths, and Hawke reached down and idly caressed a white tattoo. Fenris gave no indication that this was distressing, so Hawke ran the palm of his hand up Fenris’ muscular chest, to Fenris’ hard nipples. 

But before Hawke could devote any more attention to them, Fenris pushed back on Hawke’s cock, just like he had on Hawke’s fingers. “I’m ready,” he said. 

So Hawke fucked him, steadily and deeply, the way he had wanted to for years. Fenris panted and writhed, and Hawke watched him bite his lower lip a few times to hold in the moans. The third time Fenris did that, Hawke leaned down and kissed him, and then chuckled. “It’s okay, Fenris,” Hawke said. “Everyone’s asleep, and even if they weren’t, they won’t hear us in here.” 

So Fenris moaned, soft and deep, and he breathed the word “Hawke,” the way that other lovers had said the word “Maker.” He came before Hawke did, covering his own stomach with semen, and when Hawke came, it leaked out of Fenris and onto the furniture. 

But Hawke knew laundering spells. He cleaned the sofa and Fenris up, and because they had no blankets, Hawke and Fenris both pulled their trousers back on. Hawke wanted to talk to Fenris about whether or not that had been good, and what it meant for them, but he’d had little sleep to begin with, and between the physical exertion of sex and the further exertion of using magic, he was sat down on the sofa thinking that he needed a moment of rest and was unconscious a second later. 

Hawke awoke with the sun much higher in the sky and the candles a melted distant memory. 

Fenris was nowhere to be seen, and neither were his clothes. On top of the book they’d been reading was a note, in messy handwriting that Hawke recognized immediately as Fenris’. 

“Taking Cato home. 

We will tok later.

I am sorry. 

-Fenris.” 

_’Fuck,’_ Hawke thought. The very fact that Fenris had left was proof enough that Hawke had fucked up. Happy people who enjoyed the sex they’d had last night and did not regret it didn'tdrag their children out of bed and leave as soon as the other party dozed off. Fenris could have stayed. They could have all had breakfast together and relaxed after yesterday’s little nightmare. Fenris must have _realized_ that he was welcome to stay. Hawke had said it enough times. The fact that Fenris wasn’t here meant that Fenris had _chosen_ not to stay. That wasn’t a good sign. 

The ‘Sorry’ as good as proved it. 

_Fuck_. 

Hawke forced himself not to go after Fenris right away. If Fenris needed space, the least Hawke could do was give it to him. Hawke picked the rest of his clothing up off the floor and redressed, cleaned up what mess there was, and then went back up to his bedroom with the note clutched firmly in his hand, to steal an hour of comfortable sleep while it was still acceptable to do. 

He couldn’t fall back asleep, though. He laid in bed for an hour hating himself. _Of course_ Fenris regretted it now. It had been too much, too soon. Hawke had moved too quickly, and although Fenris had seemed to want it just as much as Hawke did, Fenris could hardly have been expected to make rational decisions so soon after confronting Hadriana. Hawke should have stopped everything after the kiss, and waited until a time when they were both more clear-headed. 

Or had Fenris been hoping to get something out of last night that Hawke hadn’t provided? Or had Hawke simply been bad in bed last night? Hawke was not a virgin. He’d had lovers in Lothering, and all but one had been male. Hawke knew what he was doing, but perhaps it had been different with Fenris. Or perhaps it was different with elves? Hawke had never had sex with an elf before. It hadn’t even occurred to him before last night that it might be different. Maybe it was a specific thing that Hawke had done, rather than the fact that they’d done it at all. Hawke hoped so. They could talk about that. They could fix a specific thing. 

Was Fenris upset? Angry? Just embarrassed? 

Cato was supposed to have a lesson that day. Hawke supposed there was nothing for it but to wait and see if Cato came. That would say a lot about just how upset Fenris was and how Fenris wanted to proceed. 

Hawke went downstairs after an hour and four Orana halfway through cooking breakfast. She greeted him as though nothing was wrong, and Hawke didn’t want to force a conversation she wasn’t ready to have, so he simply asked if she’d slept well. She said she had, and though Hawke didn’t believe that she’d slept _well_ , he believed that she’d slept, which was something. 

In the early afternoon, when Hawke expected Cato, Bodhain showed up and informed Hawke that _Fenris_ was at the door. 

“Why didn’t he just come in?” Hawke asked. His stomach knotted. 

Bodhain shrugged. “He didn’t say. He just asked me to tell Master Hawke that he was at the door, and that’s what I’ve done. I can tell him to find you up here, if you like--” 

“No,” Hawke said. “Let me handle this.” He slipped past Bodhain and down to the entry room, where he found Fenris standing with his usual alert posture. 

“I’m sorry,” Hawke and Fenris said in unison, as soon as Fenris looked at Hawke. 

“No!” Hawke said quickly, panic mounting. “Hear me out, please! I _know_ I messed up last night, and--” 

“--What?” Fenris said. 

“... Last night?” Hawke said. “I woke up and you weren’t there, and I assumed that I...” And now he didn’t know how to put words to any of the things he’d considered that he might have done wrong. Fenris was blinking at him like Hawke was speaking Orlesian. 

Fenris shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not... It was fine.” A moment later, he realized that he was damning with faint praise, and said, “No. That is insufficient. It was better than anything I could have dreamed.” 

Hawke wanted to feel relieved, but Fenris still looked like something was wrong, and he’d still left in a hurry this morning and apparently hadn’t brought Cato for his lessons today. All this meant was that all of Hawke’s guesses about _what_ was wrong had been incorrect. 

“I’m sorry that I left while you were sleeping,” Fenris said. “I wanted to stay and talk to you, to explain, but I had to get Cato home and I didn’t want him to know what had happened, and I didn’t know what to do.” That made sense. Fenris had always done his best to shelter Cato from anything sexier than hand-holding. Hawke had found it odd, until a month ago. Now he tried to be a bit more understanding. 

“I understand,” Hawke said. His voice broke as he spoke, betraying his confusion and hurt. It was unfair, but it was there, and now he couldn’t deny it. 

Fenris dropped his gaze, unable to look Hawke in the eyes. “This morning, I began to remember... My life before... Just flashes. It’s too much. This is too fast. I cannot... do this.”

“Your life before?” Hawke asked. “What do you mean?” 

“I’ve never remembered anything before the ritual,” Fenris said, looking at Hawke again now. “But there were... faces. Words. For just a moment, I could recall all of it. And then it slipped away...” 

“If it brings your memory back, perhaps we need to do it more often,” Hawke suggested. 

He regretted it immediately when he saw how Fenris sighed. “Perhaps you don’t realize how upsetting this is.” Very slowly and carefully, he explained again: “I’ve never remembered _anything_. And to have it all come back in a rush, only to lose it...” He looked away again, and his next breath sounded more like a sob than a sigh. “I can’t... I can’t.” 

“We can work through this,” Hawke said, not wanting to let this go this easily, when he’d only just gained it. Surely there was _something_ they could do? If Fenris needed to take sex off the table indefinitely, Hawke was fine with that, but he needed... _something_. This felt too final. It felt too much like Fenris was calling off everything they’d had for the last three years--all of those feelings and gestures they’d never put words to. Hawke didn’t want to lose that. He didn’t want to lose Fenris to one mistake--especially if it had been _Danarius’_ mistake and not his own. 

“I’m sorry,” was all Fenris said. 

That was it then. Hawke had to look away too as the cold grief and resignation settled in. 

“I feel like such a fool,” Fenris said. “All I wanted was to be happy. Just for a little while. Forgive me.” 

“Don’t,” Hawke said, looking at him again, trying desperately to keep his own emotions under control, just for now, but it wasn’t working. Hawke’s face revealed everything he was feeling, but still, he tried. “It’s not your fault, Fenris. I understand. I--You’re not leaving Kirkwall, though?”

“No!” Fenris said quickly. “I... If you’ll have me, I still want to be friends.” 

Still friends. Good. That was something, at least. “Yes,” Hawke said. “Of course. Please. And... You’ll keep sending Cato for his lessons? He’s not ready to stop them yet.” Bethany had been able to make it on her own after their father had died when she was sixteen. When she’d had a question about something and couldn’t figure it out on her own, she’d asked Hawke, and he’d either told her or they’d figured it out together, but the challenging parts of her training had been finished by then. Cato, however, was nowhere near that level, and wouldn’t be for a number of years. 

“Of course,” Fenris said. “I appreciate your willingness to continue them, in light of this. If that does not extend to myself--” 

“Of course it does,” Hawke said. “Please, keep coming. We’ll figure out a different way to...” 

“Thank you,” Fenris said. He took a deep breath, and with a strained voice, he said, “I left Cato at Viscount’s Keep with Aveline. I understand that Hadriana is dead, but I don’t want to leave him alone... Yet I am sure Aveline doesn’t appreciate being asked to babysit while she’s working. I should go get him. And then I think he and I are going to spend the rest of the day at home.” 

“Right,” Hawke said, nodding. “No lessons today. I think that’s best.” 

And so Fenris nodded, turned, and left.


	7. Act 2 - Part 4

“Hawke,” Cato said a week later, putting down his quill and looking up from the drawing he’d been doing. They’d finished with his lessons half an hour ago, but Fenris hadn’t yet come for his reading lesson. Hawke told himself that Fenris was just waiting to see if the snow let up, but worried that the truth was that Fenris just didn’t want to come. “You and Fenris haven’t been hanging out together lately. And you don’t sit together when you read.” 

“No,” Hawke admitted. “We don’t.” 

Cato frowned. “But I told Fenris that Orana isn’t your slave.” 

Hawke smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “But Fenris already knew that.” 

Cato nodded. “Yeah, that’s what he said. But then why are you fighting? He wouldn’t tell me.” 

Hawke sighed. “We’re not fighting.” 

“Well then what are you? _Something’s_ wrong.” 

Hawke reached down and put a comforting hand on Cato’s head. “Nothing is wrong, Cato. Things just have to be different.” 

Cato looked up at Hawke with big green eyes and pouted. “But you’re so _sad_. And so’s Fenris. Things shouldn’t be different if different makes you sad.” 

“But they can’t be the way they used to be anymore,” Hawke said. “It’s not that Fenris and I want thing to be like this. They just... have to be.” 

“That’s stupid,” Cato said. 

“Yes,” Hawke said shortly. “It is. But it’s how it’s going to be.” 

Cato made a noise in the back of his throat that was either a very petulant grown or a very irritated whine, but he looked back down at his drawing. 

Hawke sighed. “Look, Cato, it’s hard to explain. I’m sorry. What are you drawing?” 

Cato shrugged, reminding Hawke of how very close Cato was getting to the age when Carver became insufferable (though Hawke loved Carver to death), and Hawke walked over and looked over Cato's shoulder. 

Hawke froze. He shut his eyes and opened them again, hoping that the picture would change, or that he’d see something different in it than he did before, but everything was exactly the same, and there really was no mistaking what it was, even in black and white. Cato was a talented artist. 

Cato looked up at Hawke and frowned. “What?” he said. “It’s not a big deal. I just think about it sometimes.” 

“Right,” Hawke said, nodding and trying to keep his voice steady. “Do you draw things like this a lot, Cato?” 

“I draw other stuff too.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

Cato shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes?” 

Sometimes. That was extremely vague, but it meant at least that this had happened more than once. “Do you ever show Fenris?” 

“No,” Cato said, and the pitch of his voice got higher. “And you shouldn’t either. He won’t like it. He doesn't like to talk about it.” 

Hawke sighed. “Right,” he said. He sucked his teeth. “Can I have that, Cato?” he asked. 

“You don’t even like it.” 

The lie would be too obvious if Hawke insisted he did. Instead, he said, “You’re a very good artist.” That much was true, at least. “And you don't want to bring it home to Fenris anyway, do you?” 

Cato said nothing. 

“Please?” Hawke added.

Cato nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Just don’t show Fenris.” 

Hawke picked the drawing up and carefully took it to his room, then came back downstairs and announced to Cato that, “The snow isn’t going to let up any time soon. I think we’d better just get you home before it gets worse, and make sure Fenris is doing alright.” 

“We?” 

“I’m going to walk you. In case you slip.” 

Kirkwall generally got rainy winters, not snowy ones. In the three years that Cato and Fenris had been here, they’d seen snow twice, and neither occasion had been as bad as this. Snow in Tevinter and Antiva, from Hawke’s understanding, was all but unheard of. With such little experience with snow, Cato had little grounds on which to argue with Hawke. He stood and pulled on the old second-hand coat that Fenris had saved up to buy for him. He didn’t say a word to Hawke as they walked across Hightown to Fenris’ mansion.

Cato must have suspected Hawke’s real motives, though, because as soon as they got to the door, Cato turned around and declared, “Okay. I’m home now. I didn’t slip. You can go.”

“Nonsense!” Hawke said cheerfully, reaching around Cato to open the door. “I want to say hi to Fenris.”

“Are you sure you can do that, now that things are different?”

“Of course. Fenris and I are still friends.” 

Cato ducked under Hawke’s arm to go into the house, and Hawke followed. Cato hovered around Hawke as Hawke walked to Fenris’ room, and stayed in the doorway as Hawke and Fenris greeted each other. 

“I apologize for my tardiness,” Fenris said. “I didn't want to walk in the snow.”

Hawke forced a smile. “I imagine walking in the snow is even more unappealing when you never wear shoes.”

Fenris chuckled, and it eased Hawke’s fears slightly. “I’ll wear shoes when Merrill does,” he promised. “I have to do something to make me feel like an elf.”

“There,” Cato said, looking at Hawke suspiciously. “You said hi to Fenris, so now you can go.”

“Cato!” Fenris said, “That’s very rude! Apologize to Hawke.”

Cato looked down at the floor. “Sorry, Hawke.”

“That’s alright,” Hawke said. Then he shot Fenris a serious look, and Fenris picked up on the meaning. 

“Go upstairs, Cato,” Fenris said. “Hawke and I need to talk about adult things.”

Cato looked up, but didn’t move. “Like what?”

“Taxes,” Hawke said quickly. “And eating lots of vegetables.” 

Cato was obviously not convinced. “Fenris never eats vegetables.” 

“I imagine that’s why Hawke thinks we need to talk about it,” Fenris said firmly. “Now go.”

Cato sighed and slipped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. 

“He’s in a mood today,” Fenris said. “I hope he wasn’t like that at his lesson?”

Hawke shrugged. “A little. I was going to ask if you’ve noticed any other odd behavior from him lately.”

Fenris thought about it. “He’s been having nightmares again,” Fenris admitted. “No bedwetting yet. There was a little bit of accidental magic the other day, but he fixed it quickly. It wasn't a problem. Why? Have you noticed something?”

Hawke hesitated. “Just the moodiness,” he said. “It’s probably no coincidence that this all happened right after Hadriana came back.” Nightmares didn't worry Hawke, and accidental magic during or after a nightmare was perfectly normal for mage children. If Fenris hadn’t noticed anything else, it was probably fine. Fenris _lived_ with Cato. He would know if something were wrong. “I don’t think Cato is feeling very secure right now.”

“Neither am--” but Fenris stopped himself. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. Hawke wanted to reach out and comfort him, but he didn’t think that was allowed anymore. They'd been trying not to touch each other as much, not because they felt any less affection for each other, but to remove the temptation to have sex again when Fenris wasn't ready. “You are probably right. What do you think I should do?”

Hawke shrugged. “I don’t know that there’s anything you can do but wait. It might help if we _tell_ him the danger is gone. Reassure him.”

Fenris nodded. “Perhaps.”

Hawke hovered by the door, wondering about the real reason why Fenris hadn't come to pick Cato up. It was entirely possible that Fenris just hadn't wanted to face the snow, but Hawke worried it was something deeper. “If you’re not up for a reading lesson--” 

“No!” Fenris said quickly. “I am. I’m sorry. With the snow...” He stopped himself. “I didn’t mean to offend.” If he wasn’t sincere, he was an incredible actor. 

Hawke shook his head. “You didn’t. I’ll go get a book from your library?” 

Fenris nodded. Hawke pulled a book from the shelves, and he and Fenris sat at the kitchen table, a comfortable distance from each other, and read together for nearly two hours. It was pleasant, for all that it lacked intimacy. Hawke enjoyed seeing Fenris absorbed in a book, and the little satisfied smile Fenris flashed whenever he worked out a difficult word. 

For all that the journey home was wet and unpleasant, Hawke retired for the evening thinking that the day had been _nice_. He’d entirely forgotten about Cato’s picture, which was why it was a shock to open his bedroom door and find it sitting on his bed. 

It was in black and white and far from professional quality, but the image it depicted was unmistakable: Fenris, tearing the hearts out of a Fog Warrior while half a dozen others lay dead at his feet. 

Hawke picked the paper up carefully. Fenris hadn’t noticed anything wrong. It was probably nothing. Besides, if Hawke were going to say something, he should have done so earlier. He'd missed his chance. Fenris would be confused about why Hawke hadn't said something before, and Cato would feel that his trust had been betrayed.

'It's just something I think about sometimes.' Hawke imagined that it was a difficult image to get out of your head. Perhaps that was all Cato was trying to do? Get it out of his head? 

Hawke walked over to the fireplace, which Bodhain had lit for him some time ago, and carefully fed the edge of the paper into the flames. It caught, and when Hawke didn’t immediately regret this decision, he dropped the whole thing in. It was better that way.

~*~

The adjustment period lasted a few weeks. Hawke and Fenris got used to keeping each other at a physical distance, and their friendship went on.

On the cold day in late Firstfall that Hawke came home to white lilies and his mother missing, he didn’t think twice about calling Fenris. He called Anders too, because his mother might need a healer (They would get there on time. They would get there on time.), and Fenris and Anders could damn well put up with each other for this. Cato wanted to come, but Hawke convinced him to remain with Bodhain, waiting at the estate in case she returned. 

Sebastian ran all the way from the Chantry to Hawke’s mansion to join the search party. There was no time to get the others. Aveline was off Maker-knows-where on a date... No, not her fault. Hawke had helped her flirt with Donnic. 

Hawke just had to go. 

They found a trail of blood that led to the scene of a crime Hawke had blown off solving three years ago. They found a necromancer. They found demons. They found corpses stitched together like a rag doll, and Hawke’s mother’s head on top of it. He held her while she died, listened while she said her goodbyes, and his friends stood behind him, unmoving, barely breathing. 

When she stopped moving, he stared down at her body, not truly her body, and though he had never been a religious man, the thought ‘ _There are rites to be done_ ,’ entered his mind and it was the only thing that was real. 

“Anders...” Hawke said, and his voice broke as he did so, “Help me take her apart. Carefully. Respectfully. Fenris, look around and see if you can find any other... parts. Of any of them. Sebastian... just stay close. We’re going to need you soon.” 

Hawke saw the understanding in Sebastian’s eyes as he nodded. The other two looked mystified, but they obeyed him. Anders sat on the floor beside Hawke and helped Hawke separate his mother from all the pieces that were not his mother, and from there separate those. He didn’t know which pieces were Ninette and which were Mharen, and aside from the head, he couldn’t even tell if anything was his mother’s. He and Anders undid every stitch and left every piece in a separate pile. When Fenris returned, they kept his finding separate as well. Hawke lit every piece on fire and asked Sebastian to say the rights for all of them, because for all they knew, there were fifteen women there, not three, and every one of them deserved to be laid to rest properly. 

Sebastian agreed, and chanted until his voice was hoarse. 

Anders tried to comfort Hawke on the endless walk back, but Sebastian stopped him before he got three words out. “He doesn’t want to hear it. I didn’t.” 

Hawke found his mansion quiet. Cato was asleep in the library, and Sandal had been sent to bed hours ago. Gamlen was pacing nervously while Bodhain sat in the entry room, silent. Orana was cleaning, with a nervous energy she didn’t usually exhibit when she cleaned. They knew. The adults all knew, and the children, lucky children, were blissfully unaware for a few more hours. 

Hawke couldn’t remember the conversation wtih Gamlen five minutes after it happened. He remembered Gamlen saying that _he_ would write Carver. That was a relief. Hawke didn’t want to put this to paper. He didn’t want to have to see it. He didn’t want to be the one to tell his brother that they were alone. 

After his private conversation with Gamlen, he wandered up to his bedroom and sat on his bed. He didn’t know how long he sat there, completely numb and staring at the wall, before Fenris walked in. 

“I don’t know what to say, but...” Fenris said, “I am here.” 

But Sebastian was right. Hawke didn’t want to hear any useless proverbs or condolences that wouldn’t bring her back. There was only one thing he cared to discuss: “Am I to blame for not saving her?” 

Fenris hesitated. “I could say no,” he said. “But would that help?” 

Hawke didn’t answer, which _was_ an answer, of sorts. 

“You are looking for forgiveness,” Fenris said, “but I’m not the one who can give it to you.” 

He was right, of course. Hawke said nothing. Fenris accepted the silence for longer than he normally would have, and then said, “Would you like me and Cato to stay, or to leave you?” 

“Stay,” Hawke said. “Not like last time, but stay, please. In your own bed.” 

Fenris nodded. 

“I’ll show you which rooms to take.” Hawke forced himself to do so. He followed Fenris out of the bedroom and down the stairs, and he watched Fenris lift his sleeping child off the sofa and into his arms, and do it easily, despite Cato being as tall as Fenris’ shoulders when they were standing. Hawke directed Fenris to a bed for Cato, and then another for Fenris himself, and they all retired. 

There was a comfort to knowing that Fenris was there, even if he was in a different room. It was reassuring to think that at least he had not lost Fenris. Fenris needed space and Hawke needed closeness, and they were making it work. He hadn’t lost this.

~*~

On the list of the Worst Years of Hawke’s Life, 9.34 Dragon sat comfortably between the year a Blight fell on his homeland and he watched his sister be killed by an ogre and then had to sell himself to a mercenary while living in a hovel, and the year that his business partner locked him in the deep roads and he had to tell his mother that he’d fed his baby brother darkspawn blood. Hawke would have been very content to spend the last few weeks of it in bed. When he’d asked Fenris for a few weeks off from both magic and reading lessons, Fenris had agreed.

But friends worry. They’re good for that, if nothing else. So Aveline let Hawke yell at her when she didn't deserve it, and Sebastian dragged Hawke to the Chant for what little comfort there was in it for an apostate, and Varric bought him ale and Merrill brought him flowers, and everyone _tried_ very hard to make Hawke feel better, and never seemed surprised when it didn’t work. He remained numb and cynical and not generally a great deal of fun to be around. 

He had not been thrilled to find Aveline and Isabela arguing in his mansion, but “I'm going to die!” was not a claim that Hawke could ignore. He had lost too much to allow himself any doubt about Isabela’s motives or honesty. He could be there for her as he hadn’t been there for others. 

They found the relic, and Hawke lost Isabela anyway.

But it was Aveline’s favor that made things turn from bad to worse. In a moment, years of uneasy peace ended, and the Arishok declared war on the city. The night was a blur of blood and fire until they came across Knight-Commander Meredith. Hawke couldn’t even worry about the fact that she’d just watched him do magic. Not right now. If he had to--

But he didn’t have to. “I’ll overlook your own use of magic, for the moment.” 

And that was when a bad situation got worse. “The Qunari are taking people to the Keep and may already be in control. We will need to deal with them.” 

“Why would they be taking hostages?” Hawke asked. 

It was Fenris who answered: “They’re going to take everyone of import and...” But he didn’t get farther than that. Fenris blinked slowly twice, and Fenris looked more afraid than he had at any other point in their three-year friendship. “Hightown,” he said. “They’re going to evacuate Hightown.” He sprinted up the staircase without another word. That didn’t answer Hawke’s question about why, but it didn’t need to. _Cato_ was in Hightown. So were a lot of other people, and whatever the Qunari had planned for them, it was probably worth stopping. 

Hawke finally caught Fenris in Hightown, and had to all but tackle him to stop him from running straight for his own mansion. 

“Fenris!” he said, “We have to get to the Keep!” 

“ _I_ have to go find Cato,” Fenris insisted, spinning around and looking at Hawke with eyes that promised he’d fight him if he had to. “I told him what to do if we ever got captured by _slavers_ , not Qunari. What if he tries to fight them? What if he thinks that just because _you_ taught him a few spells--” 

“This isn’t my fault!” Hawke couldn't really be angry though, so soon after he'd done the same thing to Aveline.

Fenris stopped talking. Hawke could see in Fenris’ eyes that he knew Hawke was right, but he couldn’t make the words come out. Fenris was too conflicted, torn between the urge to run and protect the only thing he had worth protecting and the logical thought that Hawke was right. He stood frozen. 

Hawke capitalized on it: “Look around! Everyone’s already gone!” Hawke said. “If Cato is in the Keep, _that’s_ where we need to go to rescue him. If he’s not in the Keep, then he’s probably hiding, and the worst thing that we could possibly do for him is lead the Qunari to him!” 

Fenris considered this for a moment, then nodded. “To the Keep, then.” 

They burst through the doors of the throne room not ten minutes later, covered in blood and with Templars and mages working together to keep the second onslaught at bay behind them. They looked around frantically, and located the group of children being guarded by a curly-horned Qunari in the corner. 

Cato wasn’t among them. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Hawke couldn’t be sure yet. 

“Don’t do anything stupid, Fenris,” Varric said. 

Hawke looked at Fenris and saw the rage and horror on Fenris’ face, and his cautious sense of relief vanished. He followed Fenris’ gaze, and found Cato in the opposite corner of the other children, being individually guarded. Unlike the other children, his mouth was gagged and his hands were tied. There was a golden mast on his eyes that Fenris recognized: the same mask Katojan wore. 

They knew Cato was a mage. They knew Cato was a mage who had been left outside of their supervision. 

An object went flying through the air, and when it landed and rolled to Hawke’s feet, Hawke realized that it was Viscount Dumar’s head. The first nobleman to object to the murder of their city’s leader had his neck broken for it. The night kept getting better. 

And then the Arishok, who had certainly seen them long before, acknowledged them. “Shenadon, Hawke. I expected you.” 

Hawke entered slowly, paying attention to Fenris in his peripheral vision, so that he could quickly grab Fenris if Fenris decided to make a break for his son and get himself killed. 

But Fenris didn’t try anything of the sort. He walked calmly next to Hawke until they came face-to-face with the Arishok, who asked a question Hawke didn’t have an answer to. 

Isabela, fortunately, did, as well as excellent dramatic timing. She arrived with the Tome of Koslun, and returned it to the Arishok. Better late than never. 

“The relic is returned. We are free to return to Par Vollen--with the thief.” 

At that point, it wasn’t a question of justice, rehabilitation, or punishment. The question was simply whether or not Hawke wanted to live the rest of his life without Isabela, wondering what had become of her and if whatever horrible fate might befall her was his fault. Hawke had been through this already. He’d been doing this with Carver for three years, and he didn’t like it. No one else died, or worse. No one else. 

“You have your relic,” he said, as reasonably as he could while his heart was in his throat. “She stays with us.” 

“Then you leave me no choice.” 

Hawke shifted his stance and reached for his staff, ready for the onslaught to continue. 

“I challenge you, Hawke. You and I will battle to the death, with her as the prize.” 

Isabela objected, but the Arishok wouldn’t listen. For Isabela’s sake and for the entire city’s sake, there was only one thing he could do. 

“I accept your challenge.” 

As Hawke and the Arishok got into position, Fenris ran for Cato. Fenris pulled the child’s gag off and Hawke sighed with relief right along with Fenris when he saw that it was free of blood. Isabela cut Cato’s hands free, and Fenris pulled off the mask to reveal Cato’s tear-stained face, but quickly pressed Cato’s face into his shoulder and held it there in something too first to be affection. 

Hawke understood. Cato had seen too much violence in his life. Fenris wasn’t going to let him watch this. 

Fenris looked at Hawke with sad eyes, and mouthed “Don’t die.” 

The duel started, and the rest is a blur of senses Hawke doesn’t care to recall: his fire, the Arishok’s screams; the Arishok’s blade, and then Hawke’s slippery blood all over the floor. He _did_ , and there was pain, but he kept running on a throbbing ankle. Not fast enough. More steel. Ice. Ice! _Just stop moving!_ Should have been a healer. The Arishok lifted Hawke up on his blade, and left Hawke’s own body weight impale him on the metal. 

Hawke shot a fire at the Arishok’s face, and they both fell to the ground. Hawke hit his head hard, and everything went black. 

He didn’t know if it was three seconds or three minutes before a deep Qunari voice yelled something in his own language. 

Or maybe it was in Common? Hawke couldn’t tell. He was sure the next voice he heard was Fenris’, but he couldn’t make that out either. 

Then Isabela. Isabela didn’t even _speak_ Qunlat, as far as Hawke knew. He caught the word “Anders!” at the end of what she said, and that was it.

Hawke felt hands too small to be Anders’ on the worst of his wounds. It was painful at first, but then there was an almost pleasant tingling... 

Then there was nothing.

~*~

Hawke opened his eyes and saw darkness.

He shivered. He wasn’t dead. If the cold didn’t make that clear, the pain would have. No loving Maker would require his children to suffer for all eternity, and if there was no Maker, there was no need for any afterlife at all. 

Hawke sat up. He found himself light-headed, but that was okay. Arm. Arm. Ears. Nose. Ten toes to wiggle, which implied two feet and two legs... He seemed to be in one piece. 

On a hunch, he reached above his head and to his right, until his hand brushed the thick material of his bed curtain. He was in his own bed, which was encouraging. The Qunari _probably_ hadn’t sacked the city. 

Hawke tossed his blankets off and put a bare foot on the cold floor, then stood on a tender ankle. The dizziness worsened for a moment, but then it got better, and Hawke limped to the door in the darkness. He didn’t know how late it was, or if he was home alone, but he needed to find out. 

He opened the door to find the rest of the house mostly dark, but a single candle in the parlor provided just enough light to see the two shadowy figures whispering with each other. Hawke couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, but he could tell from their tone and demeanor that they were arguing. That made it all the clearer who they were.

“I’d join you down there,” he said, leaning over the railing, “but I have a feeling that even if I made it _down_ those stairs, Fenris would have to carry me back up them.” Hawke chuckled, hoping that Fenris would understand it as a joke and not be uncomfortable with the implied intimacy.

Fenris didn’t even seem to notice. Anders and Fenris exchanged relieved looks, and for a moment they seem to have completely forgotten how much they hated each other. 

“Yeah,” Anders said, snapping out of it and looking back up at Hawke. “Don’t come down here. You should even be standing on that ankle yet. Get back to bed!” He began to climb the stairs, as though he meant to drag Hawke to bed if he didn’t immediately go himself. 

Fenris watched Anders go, then grabbed the candle and followed. “I should wake Cato,” Fenris told Hawke. “He’ll want to know you’re up. You won’t mind him coming to see you?” 

“Not at all,” Hawke said, limping back toward his bed. He’d be glad to get off his feet, to be honest. 

“They wouldn’t leave until they knew you were okay,” Anders grumbled, magically getting a fire going in the fireplace as Hawke settled back into bed. “It was good practice for Cato, though. I wish I could teach the kid without that mage-hater hovering around, but we have to take what we can get.” 

“Cato helped you heal me?” Hawke asked. 

Anders snorted. “I helped him, more like. You were his patient first.” He smiled at Hawke. “Don’t get me wrong: I did most of the work. He’s not that advanced yet. It was a good teaching opportunity, though. It's probably a small comfort to you that you nearly dying was educational for Cato, but...” 

“No,” Hawke said. “I'll take good news where I can get it. Cato could use more time learning from an actual spirit healer.” 

Anders nodded. “Nnn. Shame he'll never get it except in times like these. He’s got a lot of natural talent. You’d have bled out on the floor long before I got there if it hadn’t been for him. Apparently he ran for you as soon as Fenris let him, after the Qunari declared you the victor and left. Closed up some nasty wounds, at least well enough to hold until I got there.” 

“Wait,” Hawke said, as Anders began to examine various injuries Hawke hadn’t fully realized he had, “so I won? Even though I nearly bled out on the floor?” 

“You out-lived the Arishok,” Anders said, shrugging. “Apparently that was enough for the Qunari. They’ve gone home, and you’ve been declared Champion.”

“Champion?” Hawke echoed. “With no Viscount? Who made that call?” 

“That’s the brilliant part,” Anders said smugly. “Knight-Commander Meredith did.” 

“Knight-Commander Meredith made a _mage_ the Champion of Kirkwall?” 

“I’m pretty sure she thought she was making a dead man the Champion of Kirkwall.” Anders was beaming. “When she finds out, she’s going to sh--”

“You _are_ up!” 

Anders barely caught Cato on time to stop him from taking a running leap into the bed with Hawke. 

“Remember what we talked about?” Anders asked. “It is very easy to hurt him when he’s like this.” 

Fenris hovered near the doorway, looking on with wide eyes, but not joining in the scene. He didn’t stop it either, though, which was a good sign. Clearly, he had come to see the utility of spirit healers. 

“He’s going to be okay now, though, right?” 

“Yes,” Anders said. “He’s going to be okay.”

Cato turned to Hawke, clearly struggling to refrain from jumping on the bed. “Hawke, I was so scared! You were all covered in blood, and then I tried to help you and then I was all covered in blood, but then Anders got there and he saved you!” 

Hawke smiled. “Anders says that _you_ saved me.” 

Cato looked at Anders and grinned. “Really?!” 

Anders nodded. “You sure did.” 

Hawke thanked Cato, and Cato leaped into the air with excitement and pride. Even Fenris smiled. 

“Hey,” Hawke said. “I saw what the Qunari did to you. Are you okay?”

Cato calmed immediately. “Yeah,” he said. “I'm okay. I didn't really like the mask thing. Or the mouth thing. Or the fact that they tied my hands together. But I'm okay. They only hit me once.” 

Hawke looked at Fenris, and Fenris understood the implied question and shook his head. Cato had no idea what the Qunari did to their mages. 

“They shouldn't have hit you at all,” Hawke said. 

“I know,” Cato said. “But it's okay. They're gone now. But Hawke?” 

“Yeah?” Hawke asked. 

“I did magic in front of everyone,” Cato said quietly. “And you did too. And so did Anders. Was that bad?” 

Hawke wasn't sure. Knight-Commander Meredith had said that she would overlook their use of magic _for the moment_ , and the moment had passed. She'd allowed them to leave, though. 

Anders forced a laugh. “Well, no one worry about me. It wasn't exactly a secret before that I'm a mage.”

Hawke laughed along with Anders, and Cato forced a laugh too, though it was obvious he didn't really understand why they were laughing. 

“No, Cato,” Hawke said. “That wasn't bad. You did the right thing. I'm really glad you saved me. Let me and Anders and Fenris worry about everything else.”


	8. Act 3 - Part 1

Vita was having a good day. Sometimes she had those. She and her two-year-old son had both woken up early, but rather than despair about the lost sleep, Vita had chosen to spend the extra time tickling him and playing with him the slave quarters before she’d gone downstairs to make breakfast--a breakfast which her master seemed to enjoy. 

He seemed to be in a good mood today, which was a relief. The master’s good moods didn’t guarantee a good day for the slaves, but his bad moods could certainly guarantee a bad one. 

Vita was just cleaning away the dishes from breakfast when one of the master’s apprentices--the thin one from the west with the spectacles--came running through like something was on fire. There was a muscular slave following closely behind him with three thick books in his arms. 

Vita paused, and glanced at her master, and he nodded to her sharply to tell her to keep clearing away the dishes. No sooner had she finished than the apprentice stopped in front of the table and began to take the books from his slave and spread them on the table, opening them to pages he’d pre-marked. Vita moved into the kitchen to wash the dishes, but she listened to the conversation, and stole a glance through the doorway when she dared to. 

“Cornelius,” the master said with a sigh, “It’s early. What are you showing me?” 

“That I’m smarter than Hadriana,” Cornelius said. 

“Unlikely,” the master said. Still, he looked at one of the books in front of him. 

Not easily discouraged, Cornelius explained: “That one describes a kidnapping case in Asariel fifty years ago. The child lost a tooth the day before the kidnapping and bled on his clothes. It was a very small amount of blood, but his parents were able to _supplement_ it with their own blood, and fool the spell into thinking--” 

“--I see that.” 

Cornelius took a deep breath and nodded. He tapped the book to the master’s left. “This one describes the process.” 

The master skimmed it, and he nodded slowly. “Hm...” he said, and it the least critical thing Vita had heard him say to Cornelius in a while. “There is one problem,” he said, stroking his beard. “We don’t _have_ the mother’s blood.” 

Vita knew what--who--he was talking about, of course. They didn’t talk about it in the slave quarters, but anyone who’d been there long enough remembered. Vita had been here all her life. She’d birthed eight babies in this house and six of them were still around. There were slaves in this house who were still quietly fuming about that tournament. Vita wasn’t mad, but it unsettled her to think about it all. 

She’d been friends with the sister, when they were girls. She’d watched the mother and sister leave, and she’d nodded her head along with the others when the master told them all he’d skin them if they ever breathed a word to--to _Fenris_ about his family. It was a good six months before the master stopped beating anyone who talked to the boy at all, just to be safe, and by then, no one much felt like talking to him. 

When the baby was born... Vita remembered that too. The baby with their master’s smile. Vita had been lucky; she hadn’t had children that year. Her breasts were dry when that baby was born. She’d never had to nurse him with her own child and put him to bed at night, and then watch him be ripped from her arms and cut into by his father every three months, while his mother watched without doing a damn thing. If you could call him a mother. He never did seem to give a damn about that child until they vanished together. Of course, he never seemed to give a damn about much of anything, after the ritual. 

In the dining room, Cornelius was undeterred. “I thought you might say that,” he said. He pointed to the third book. “That’s what that one is for. It’s a thesis from Magister Brutus Vinicius, about how children really get their father’s traits, and the mothers are just incubators.” 

“A man who married a laetan would say that,” the master said.

“But it does seem to be the case, doesn’t it?” Cornelius said. “I’ve got an elven slave with three children, and not a one of them looks like an elf! It’s because kids take after their fathers.” 

“And yet I have never seen a human slave give birth to a elven baby,” the master said. “Though I doubt interracial breeding in the slave quarters only goes one way.” 

Cornelius sighed. “Look,” he said, “we can argue about lineage later. All I’m saying is that there haven’t been a lot of tests on this, and you _might_ not need the mother’s blood. What do you have to lose from trying?” 

“Blood,” the master said flatly. “Time. Lyrium. My patience with you.” 

“And what’s that, compared to getting back your most valuable slaves? It’s not like this will take a lot of time, or require materials you don’t already have.” 

The master hesitated, and then said, “Hm,” again, and again, it was almost kind. “Fine,” he said. “I suppose it’s worth a try...”


	9. Act 3 - Part 2

Cato didn’t like Darktown. It was smelly and, well, _dark_. Sure, Cato could see alright in the dark, and there was a lamp every twenty yards or so, and even a little bit of sunlight streaming down from the elevator shafts, but it wasn’t enough to make out anyone’s face, which was creepy. People held out their hands as Cato walked by, and he always felt like they were going to grab him, though he knew they weren't. 

“I don’t have any money,” he said, not stopping. It was true; he didn’t, but everyone in Darktown always thought he did. It was his clothes. People in Hightown always thought he looked cheap; in the alienage, they thought he dressed nicely; in Darktown, they thought he looked rich. 

“Hey, kid, want some candy?” 

“No thanks,” Cato said, not even turning around to look at the speaker. 

“How about some wine, then?” The voice didn’t get farther away, though Cato kept moving. The man was following him. 

So Cato stopped. 

The footsteps behind him kept coming. 

He snapped his fingers, which was entirely unnecessary for the magic, but it felt cool, and it would get the guy’s attention on his hand. There was a sudden flash of light and a some crackling, and Cato watched without turning around as sparks danced around his fingers. Cato knew what Hawke would say, if he saw it, but Anders was right: It usually worked. 

And _now_ Cato turned around, and smiled politely. “No, thank you,” he said. 

Before he let go of the electricity spell, he got a good look at the man who’d followed him. Beneath a great deal of dirt, Cato saw blond hair and pale skin. 

The man smiled back with just as much fake politeness. “You have a nice day, then.” He turned around and walked away. 

There were bad men in Darktown. Anders hadn’t lied to Cato about that. ‘Show them a bit of magic, though,’ he’d said, ‘And they’ll decide you’re not worth the trouble.’ It worked every time. 

Anders’ clinic was quiet. Cato slipped in and found the main room dark and empty, but there was a light in one of the back rooms, so he carefully climbed over strangely-placed crates to get back there. 

As soon as he walked into the room, Anders turned, glaring at him and glowing a violent blue. “ **Who is trespassing on this sanctum of healing?!** ” Anders demanded, but there was something deeper and darker in his voice, and it frightened Cato so much that he immediately stepped back. 

“Anders, it’s me!” he said. “Cato! I was just hoping that--that--” 

Anders blinked a few times, and the blue light went away. “Cato,” Anders said, in his normal voice. “Right. I... Don’t sneak up on me.” 

“Sorry,” Cato said. “I wasn’t trying to. What are you doing back here anyway?” He walked back into the room, and he got a closer look at the patient. She was a girl, a couple of years older than Cato, and she was trying to make a piece of cloth that wasn’t quite big enough cover all of the parts she didn’t want Cato to see. 

There was a baby crying somewhere in the room, but Cato couldn’t see where. 

“I don’t want no boy in here!” the patient said. 

“There was already a boy in here,” Anders pointed out. 

“But you’re old!” 

Anders sighed. He looked at Cato, and then nodded at a small crate on the other side of the room. “Take the baby into the other room and clean her off.” 

“That’s cleaning, not healing,” Cato said.

“That’s patient care,” Anders replied firmly. “She’s twenty minutes old, scared, cold, and covered in blood. Go help her. I have to stay with her mother for now. I’ll show you some diagnostic spells for the baby when I’m done.”

That was good enough for Cato. He walked toward the baby, but the girl with Anders squinted at Cato and said, “You’re an elf, aint you?” 

“No,” Cato said. “And why would it matter if I was?” 

She didn’t stop staring at him, or answer his question. “You have elf eyes.” 

Cato shrugged, trying to look less phased by it than he was. “Lots of humans have green eyes.” 

“Not like yours. Them’s elf eyes.” 

Cato had never been told that before. Was that possible? Fenris had told Cato that his mother was an elf. Sometimes people in Hightown were rude to Cato, but he’d always thought that was because of his clothes, not his eyes. “I’m not an elf,” he repeated, but now he wasn’t sure. 

“He’s a healer,” Anders told the girl. “That’s what matters right now.” Anders looked back up at Cato. “Take the baby and go. You know where the washing basin is.” 

Anders had _sort of_ cleaned the baby off already, but not very well. The blanket she was wrapped in was covered in blood now too, but that was okay. Cato knew where Anders kept the spare blankets. 

Twenty minutes later, Anders came out and found Cato holding a clean and calmed baby, who he’d wrapped, sloppily but effectively, in a fresh blanket. Cato didn’t know if the baby was just happy to be clean or if she’d just wanted to be held or if she liked Cato, but she seemed happy now. She was staring up at Cato with big grey eyes, and she smiled at him when he made faces at her. 

Holding her made Cato sad, and he didn’t know why. He held her and made faces at her anyway, though. It seemed like someone should. 

“Is her mom going to be okay?” Cato asked. Anders looked even more tired than usual, which, by Cato’s limited diagnostic ability, either meant that he hadn’t been sleeping or that the magic he’d just done was really hard. 

Anders sighed. “She’ll be fully healed in a few weeks,” he said. “I don’t know about ‘okay.’” 

Cato frowned. “What do you mean?” 

“She’s scared,” Anders said. “And she has problems I can’t solve.” Anders knelt down and held out his arms for the baby. “How’s the little one?” 

“Good, I think,” Cato said. He handed the baby over, and she made a noise, but didn’t start crying. 

“I think so too,” Anders said. 

“What’s her name?” Cato asked. 

“She doesn’t have one, yet.” 

“Well, she needs one. You should ask her mom.”

“I don’t think her mom wants to name her,” Anders said. “You’ve spent more time with her than anyone. What do _you_ think she should be called?” 

Cato thought about for a second, and then said, “Surana.” 

Anders smiled. “After the Hero of Ferelden?”

“Yeah,” Cato said. “That’s a good name, right?” 

“A Circle mage who went on to save the whole country? I think so.” 

“She saved the whole world,” Cato said. “The Blight wouldn’t have stopped in Ferelden. I was reading about the Wardens, and did you know that the shortest Blight before her was twelve years long? And she stopped the Blight in just a year, all on her own. And lived!” 

Anders nodded. “She’s... very impressive.” 

“You knew her, didn’t you? When you were a Warden?” 

“Yes,” Anders said. “And in the Circle, too.”

“Is she cool?” 

“Very cool.” Anders looked down at the pink and orange bundle in his arms and rocked her slightly. “I think she’d approve of Baby Surana.” He smiled at the baby for a moment, and then sobered and looked at Cato. “Her mom asked if she could leave her here.” 

Cato’s smile disappeared. “Like, leave her and never come back for her?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why would she do that?!” Cato said, surprised to hear his own voice crack as he asked. 

“Shhh,” Anders said, glancing toward the back room. “She’s sleeping, and she needs her rest.” After a second of silence, Anders answered the question. “As for why: because she’s young and scared and bringing home a baby would make a bad situation worse for her, and it wouldn’t be good for little Surana either.” 

Cato’s face twitched. He didn’t like this conversation. Why was Anders telling him this? “What did you say?” 

“I said yes,” Anders said. 

“So _you’re_ going to take care of her?” That was good, at least. Cato didn’t know where he’d be without Fenris. Dead, probably, or still with Master. 

Anders shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’d love to, but... I can’t.” He looked down at her, happy and cozy in an old orange blanket. “She’ll need to be taken to the Chantry.” 

“What’ll they do with her there?” 

“If they can find a new family for her, they will,” Anders said. “If not, they’ll keep her. She’ll be a priest or a Templar or... Who knows? Maybe a Circle mage.” 

“What if she doesn’t want to be any of those things?” Cato said. 

“She doesn’t have a lot of options,” Anders said. “But I don’t either. No one here seems to.” Anders sighed. “The thing is, I don’t go to the Chantry. Not by myself, anyway. Too many Templars.” 

“Sebastian would probably take her, if you asked him,” Cato said. 

“Right,” Anders said, but it was the sort of ‘right’ that meant ‘I am going to instantly forget that you said that.’ “Good old Sebastian...” Anders looked over at Cato. “I was sort of hoping that _you’d_ take her. Right after we ran those diagnostic spells, while it’s still daylight. The Templars know how close you are to Hawke. They’re not after you yet.” 

No. Cato’s stomach flipped. “W-What if her mom changes her mind?” he asked. “What if she wakes up and realizes that she wants her?” 

Anders shook his head sadly. “That’s not going to happen this time, Cato. Trust me.” 

Cato thought about it for a minute. No. No. No. No. “What would I do, exactly?” 

“Just walk in and give the baby to the nearest priest. That’s all.”

“I don’t have to say anything?” 

“If a twelve-year-old boy gives a priest a baby and leaves, she’ll get the message.” 

Cato shook his head. “I don’t... think I can do that, Anders. I don’t want to be the one that abandoned her.” 

“You’re not abandoning her,” Anders said. “She’s already abandoned. You’re taking her someplace safe.” 

“It doesn’t feel that way!” He said it with more force than he’d meant to, but it worked. Anders backed down. 

“Alright,” Anders said softly. “I can understand that. I’m sorry I asked. _I’ll_ get the baby to the Chantry.” 

“Hawke’ll help you, if you ask him. Hawke likes helping people.” 

“Yes,” Anders said, still smiling and still obviously sad. “Hawke is wonderful. Another person who deserves better than...” He stopped himself. 

“What?”

“Nevermind. I think I promised I’d teach you some diagnostic spells?” 

“Yeah,” Cato said, sitting up straight. “You did.” 

Anders showed Cato where to put his hands, and how to move his mana and ask the spirits for help, and after a little bit of concentrating, it worked. Cato was able to confirm that Baby Surana was perfectly healthy. She squirmed around in Anders’ arms as the magic worked its way through her, and she made a happy cooing noise. 

And then there were footsteps outside. Anders quickly handed Surana off to Cato, and stood up as a man--one of the Darktown refugees, judging by how he was dressed--ran into the clinic. 

Anders relaxed only slightly. “What’s wrong, James?” 

“Templars,” he said. “On their way. Now.” 

“Shit,” Anders said. He looked around frantically, from Cato to the man, and then to the baby in Cato's arms. “James, take the baby.” Anders snatched Surana out of Cato's arms and met James in the middle of the room, still spouting instructions: “There’s a makeshift cot in the back of the other room. There’s probably some blood on it. That’s fine. Just put her in it, and run. Don’t wake the girl in there, and if she does wake up, tell her to stay where she is, but _you_ need to run.” 

“Got it,” James said. 

“Cato, come on, now!” Anders said over his shoulder. Without waiting, Anders ran out of the clinic, and Cato ran to keep up with him while James hurried into the back room with Surana. 

Anders led Fenris to a boarded up doorway just outside of his clinic. With a wave his hand, the boards that were barring the path reshaped into a ladder. 

“Up,” Anders said. “Quickly.” 

The Templars were coming. Cato didn’t argue or ask questions. Anders had said that the Templars weren’t after Cato because of his association with Hawke, and that did seem to be true, but for all Cato knew, that would go out the window if they found him here with Anders. Anders certainly seemed to think it would, at least. Cato scrambled up the ladder as fast he could, and Anders came behind him so fast he nearly climbed over Cato. Cato heard James run past them just as Anders entered the room, and Anders immediately collapsed the ladder again. 

The room didn’t look much different than the rest of darktown. It was dark and everything was dirty. Anders didn’t light any lamps or even use magical light after sealing the door, so Cato had to wait for his eyes to adjust to get a feel for how large and empty the room was. 

“Anders--” 

“Shhh!” Anders took Cato’s hand and began to lead him away from the door. Cato pulled his hand out of Anders’, because he wasn’t a little kid, but he got the message, and he followed Anders in silence.

Anders stumbled on stairs a few times and Cato had to stop him from missing a doorway and running into a wall once, but otherwise Anders seemed to know where they were going. He led Cato around through an extra room, though it looked to Cato like there was a door that would have worked as a shortcut. 

“Why didn’t we just go through there?” Cato asked. 

“Shhhh.” But Anders stopped, and they stood still for a moment and listened. No footsteps. They weren’t being followed. “It’s a trap,” Anders said. “How did you even see that door?” 

“With my eyes...?” Cato said. “So we can talk now?” 

“Yes,” Anders said. “We can talk now. But keep moving.” He continued to lead Cato into another room, and up a flight of stairs. 

“Are Surana and her mom going to be okay?” Cato asked. “We just left them there!” 

Anders sighed. “Gemma and Surana are going to be fine. The Templars don’t hurt little girls--not non-magical ones, anyway. They’ll find them back there and take them both to the Chantry, which is exactly where Surana was going to end up anyway. And who knows, maybe it won’t be such a bad place for Gemma.”

“Maybe they’ll stay there together,” Cato said. 

“Nnn,” Anders said. 

Anders led Cato up one more flight of stairs, down two more halls, and through one more room before they ended up in a room which was better kept than the others, and filled with shelves full of bottles. 

“So, just how good are those eyes?” Anders asked. “Can you see the staircase?” 

“Yeah,” Cato said, moving toward it. 

“Good. Step on the first step and say the word ‘Nordbotton.’ Quickly.” 

Cato did as he was told, but nothing seemed to happen when he said “Nordbotton.” 

“Now go up the stairs, and when you’re close enough to the ceiling, push upon it.” 

Cato hiked up the stairs slowly, so as not to make too much noise, and as soon as soon as he was high enough up the steep staircase, he reached up and pushed. 

The ceiling gave beneath his fingers. The more he climbed, the more he pushed it up, and the ceiling kept giving, until the trapdoor was wide open above him. 

While the room that the trap door led into was windowless, there was enough light coming in through the door crack to illuminate things slightly, and that was at least enough for Anders to be able to find the steps and climb up behind Cato. 

Cato didn’t have to ask where they were. As soon as Anders reached the top of the stairs, he turned around and said, “We’re in Hawke’s pantry!” 

“Yes,” Anders said. “We are.” Anders closed the trap door, and muttered a spell under his breath that Cato assumed resealed the door. Hawke wouldn’t leave things unguarded so that anyone could crawl through the cellar and into his house. Not after what happened to Mrs. Leandra... 

“Okay,” Anders said. “That takes care of the Templar problem, for now. I need to go talk to Hawke. You need to get out of the house before anyone sees that you’re with me.” 

“But Hawke likes you!” 

“I think he likes Fenris more. Come on.” 

“But where should I go?” 

“ _Home_! Or, anywhere! Just not with me!” 

Anders opened the pantry door, and they stepped into the kitchen.

Where Hawke was having a snack. Hawke stared at them blankly from over his sandwich. 

Anders opened his mouth. 

“Don’t,” Hawke said. He sighed. “You’ve been giving Cato lessons?” 

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re a good teacher,” Anders said quickly. “You are! Clearly! But you’re not a _spirit healer_ , and Cato _needs_ to learn from a spirit healer if he’s ever going to develop these talents!” 

“Fenris isn’t sure he _wants_ Cato to develop these talents!” Hawke said. “And he’s certain he doesn’t want Cato to develop them with _you_. I’m not saying I agree with him, but _Fenris_ is Cato’s parent.”

“Fenris is Cato’s _guardian_!” Anders said. “And if he had his way, Cato wouldn’t do magic at all!” 

Cato retreated back into the pantry, and the adults didn’t even seem to notice. The yelling continued: 

“He’s said a hundred times that he’s not Cato’s father. We don’t even know who Cato’s parents _are_ , let alone what they’d want! And who cares?! Parents are wrong all the time! Mine were!”

“This isn’t about _your_ parents!” Hawke said. But then he stopped and took a deep breath, and he spoke calmly, rather than yelling: “Or your trauma.” He looked at Cato, who was now standing on top of the trap door and wishing he could sink through it and go back to the cellar, where it was dark and quiet and he could be alone. “Cato, come here, please.” 

Cato forced his legs to move until he was back in the kitchen, and standing between Hawke and Anders, not too close to either of them. Hawke looked calm, at least. 

“Promise me you won’t do this again,” Hawke said. 

Cato gulped. “Are you going to tell Fenris?” 

“Not _this_ time,” Hawke said. “And I’m not going to ask how many times you’ve done this before. Just promise me you won’t do it again, and _keep_ that promise.” 

“Okay,” Cato said, looking at his shoes. 

“Say it, please.” 

“I promise I won’t go see Anders anymore.”

Hawke looked at Anders. “You too.” 

Anders huffed. “I never once _made_ him come to me. He just showed up and I--” 

“ _Anders_.” 

Anders and Hawke stared each other down for a moment, and then Anders said, “Fine. I promise I will help you ensure that Cato’s incredible gift that could do nothing but help people goes to waste, because _Fenris_ is uncomfortable with it.” Before Hawke could object, Anders said, “Now can we talk about _real_ problems? Like the fact that the Templars are getting bolder every day and my clinic was just raided _again_ , this time with recovering patients inside of it?” 

“... Shit,” Hawke said, as that sunk in. He looked at Cato. “Did the Templars see you?” 

“Uh,” Cato said. “I don’t think so?” He looked at Anders. 

Anders shook his head. “We were gone before the Templars got there.” 

“Good,” Hawke said, but he was frowning at Cato. “Where does Fenris think you are?” 

“The alienage.” 

“So get there.” Hawke turned to Anders. “You, have a seat.” 

Cato had never left the Hawke estate so quickly. He didn’t stop running until he was out of Hightown, and as he started down the stairs, he realized that he was shaking, and he wasn’t sure if it was the Templars or the fight or how close he’d come to being caught. 

Didn’t matter. It was over. Whatever. 

His legs were steady by the time he reached the alienage. He didn’t have to worry about his friends being in school, because in the alienage, they went to school at night. It was only early afternoon, so all of the adults would be at work, but Cato’s friends would be home. He could have gone to the front door and knocked, but what would be the fun of that? The girls lived in a second-story flat a few blocks away from the Vhenadahl. Cato stepped up onto a crate, and from there he pulled himself onto a wall behind him. After years of practice, it was easy to walk along the wall until he was close enough to push open the girls’ forever-unlocked window and crawl in, onto the top of their dresser. 

Both of the girls were on Lila’s bed, looking at the covers and frowning. They barely even glanced at Cato as he entered. 

Cato liked Lila and Carly’s room. It was small, with barely enough room for their dresser and two beds, but they kept it clean. Lila’s bed was purple, while Carly’s was pink and white, and underneath their beds, they kept all of their toys. They shared the one dresser. And because the only window faced south, there was actually some sunlight in the room. Corwin’s bedroom window faced west, so he only ever got different levels of shadows and a view of the building next door. Corwin had more space in his room, though, because he didn’t have to share it. 

Cato knew that his room was nicer. The walls didn’t peel, first of all, and Fenris had fixed most of the places in the mansion where the floor was damaged, or at least covered them up with rugs or furniture. Cato had a big bed and a dresser all to himself, as well as an armoire and even a bookshelf and a chair to read his books in. Cato and Fenris weren’t rich, like Hawke was, and Cato understood that he and Fenris had technically stolen all of these things, but they hadn’t gotten in trouble for it yet and after six years it seemed unlikely that they _would_ get in trouble for it, so he enjoyed having nice things. 

Despite Cato having more space and nicer stuff, Cato usually came to the alienage, not the other way around. The girls didn’t really like going to Hightown anyway, and usually no one bothered them if they played outside in the alienage, unlike Hightown.

“Something wrong?” Cato asked, hopping down from the dresser. 

“Shems suck,” Carly said. 

“Uh...” Cato said, “Sorry?” 

“Not you!” Lila said. “You and Corwin are like elves!” 

It was meant to take the sting out of Carly’s comment, but for some reason, it just hurt more. 

Cato flopped down on Carly’s bed. “So what did they do? We do. The shems.” 

“Cato...” Lila said. 

“The shems killed our cousin,” Carly said. “And a bunch of other people.” 

“Oh,” Cato said. “I’m sorry.” 

“You didn’t do it,” Lila said quickly. 

“I’m not that kind of sorry.” Cato looked at his shoes. “What happened?” 

Lila shrugged. “Shems do that sometimes. They just kill people. I should join the Dalish. They don’t have shems.” 

Cato stared at her for a few seconds, admiring her long blonde hair and her violet eyes. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He thought about her at home more than he thought about her sister or about Corwin, too. He knew that Corwin was supposed to leave Kirkwall when he came of age, and pass as human in one of the city-states to the east. Cato almost thought that he could live with Carly joining the Dalish, but Lila... “I wish you wouldn’t,” Cato said. “I’d miss you.” 

Carly laughed and pointed at Cato. “If you love her so much, why don’t you marry her?” she asked. 

“I didn’t say I _loved_ her!” Cato said. 

“Carly!” Lila exclaimed. “You are so immature!” To emphasize this point, Lila picked up her pillow and threw it at her sister. “Besides, you know I have to marry an elf.” 

Carly giggled. “You said Cato was like an elf.” 

“ _Like_ an elf! You’re so stupid. Ugh.” She rolled her eyes and then looked at Cato for support.

Cato shrugged. “My mom is an elf, and my dad... isn’t, I don’t think? I mean, he kind of can’t be?” The girls shot sideways glances at each other which they must have known Cato could see. Cato didn’t know what to make of that. “But maybe they weren’t married? I don’t know if slaves are allowed to get married. Why do elves around here all have to be married, anyway?” 

Lily shrugged. “It’s just what you do when you grow up,” she said. “You get a job, and then you get married. You’re not really an adult until you get married.” 

“Lila’s getting a job soon,” Carly said. 

“Shut up!” Lila said. She looked at Cato. “Maybe,” she said. 

“Doing what?” Cato asked.

Lila shrugged. “Cooking or cleaning or something, probably.” 

“Oh,” Cato said. “Why?” 

“Because!” Lila said. “Why don’t _you_ get a job?” 

“Well...” Cato said, “I’ve been working in the Clinic with the Healer?” 

“I love the Healer!” Carly said. “When I fell and broke my arm, he fixed it.” 

“Now who’s marrying a shem...” Lila mumbled. 

“But look,” Cato said, “Some things happened today. If Hawke or Fenris comes around here to check up on me, you have to tell them I was here, okay? Even if I wasn’t.” 

“Sure,” Lila said. “Why? What happened?” 

“It’s a long story,” Cato said. “Some Templars came to the Clinic, and Hawke found out about Anders teaching me how to be a spirit healer. I promised him I wouldn’t go again, but it’s not fair that _I_ have to stop just because _Templars_ can’t mind their own business. And Fenris doesn’t like Anders, but I don’t know why. Anders is always really nice to me. Ugh!” Cato flopped back on Carly’s bed. “It’s just stupid. Everything was fine until today. I hate Templars!” 

“There are no Templars in Tevinter,” Carly pointed out. 

“No,” Cato said, turning his head to look at her. “Just slavers.” 

“So? I thought mages ruled Tevinter?” 

“Not if they’re slaves,” Cato said. 

The girls looked at each other sideways before looking back at Cato. “Can mages be slaves?” Lila asked. 

“I don’t wanna risk it,” Cato said. “Would you?” 

They were all quiet. 

“Do you...” Lila said quietly, “Do you remember it?” 

“No,” Cato said, but he scrunched up his face as he _did_ remember more than he really wanted to, suddenly. “I mean... I remember Master cutting me, but I don’t remember why he did that, or what he looked like? And...” More flashes, and these were more pleasant. “I remember a little girl. She was an elf. And there was a woman too, also an elf. Maybe she was my mom?” No. It didn’t feel right. Cato was sure he would know if he remembered his _mom_. “But I don’t think I ever had a mom, even before Fenris and I ran away. But I don’t know.” 

“How’d you and Fenris run away?” Carly asked. 

Cato looked up at the ceiling and tried to remember, but it was such a long time ago. “We were somewhere else. Away from the house. Away from the city. Maybe we’d already run away by then? But I don’t remember how? There were humans who painted themselves white...” And then they were red, and Cato’s throat closed up. “B-but I don’t remember why Fenris...” Cato pinched his own arm as hard as he could bear to, until he felt better. Then he sat up. “I don't remember. Let’s stop talking about this.” 

“Okay,” both girls said quickly. 

“I’d hate it if you went back to Tevinter anyway,” Lila said. Then she immediately shot a dirty look at her sister to head off any rude comments.

“Let’s just stay in Kirkwall?” Cato suggested. 

“Kirkwall is terrible, though,” Lila said, but she smiled as she said it.

“Maybe,” Cato said. “Everywhere else is worse.” 

Lila shrugged. “The Dalish don’t even have real houses, so...” 

The conversation moved on to happier things, and they even went outside to play after a while. Corwin joined them, and though they got a few sideways glances, Corwin _lived_ in the alienage, and Cato was a common sight there, so no one actually said anything to them. It was nearly nightfall before Cato made the long march back up to Hightown. 

Fenris greeted Cato warmly, like he didn’t suspect that anything was wrong, but as they made a quick dinner together, Cato still watched Fenris for any sign that Hawke had gone back on his word and told Fenris where Cato was earlier. None came, until they sat down to eat and Fenris asked, “Is there a reason why you keep looking at me like that?” 

“I...” Cato had to come up with a convincing reason, and he spat out the first question that came to his mind: “Are you married, Fenris?” It was a cover, but the question had come to mind because it was not entirely insincere. 

Fenris drew back and blinked at Cato. “Who would I be married to?” 

Cato shrugged. “I dunno. An elf in Tevinter? All the elves in the alienage are married.” 

“Merrill isn’t.” 

Cato shrugged. “Merrill’s Dalish.” 

“Maybe, but she lives in the alienage. Orana is not married either, that I’m aware.” 

“But slaves can be married, then?” 

Fenris waffled. “In a sense,” he said slowly. “Slaves can ask their masters for permission to marry, and if it’s granted, they have ceremonies and consider themselves married, but it means nothing in Tevinter law. Perhaps there are masters who honor these relationships and don’t separate married slaves, but my own experiences make me skeptical.”

“So no one Master owned was married?” Cato asked. 

Fenris took a slow drink of his water. “No one _Danarius_ owned was married,” he confirmed.

“So my parents weren’t married?” Cato asked. This information didn’t really shock him, but it was good to know one more fact about his parents. 

“No,” Fenris said. 

“Are they still together?” He didn’t like the thought of them being separated from each other as well as from him, but he already knew the answer to his question. 

“No,” Fenris said. “They haven’t been together in a very long time.” 

“So Master--” 

“You can call him Danarius now,” Fernis said. “You’re old enough. You only have to call him ‘Master’ if...” Fenris struggled with it, but he did manage to get the words out: “... he recaptures you.” 

“...Okay,” Cato said. 

“I’m not going to let that happen,” Fenris said quickly. “Don’t worry about it. Just call him Danarius. It will be fine.” 

“So... Danarius...” Cato said carefully. The word felt strange; disconnected from his scars and from the memories of how they got there. That was easier. “Danarius doesn’t own my father?” 

“No,” Fenris said. “You father has never been a slave in that household.” 

“So there’s a chance my father might--” 

“No,” Fenris said. Fenris shut his eyes, and he looked like his food had suddenly turned to worms in his mouth. “Cato, your father is...” Fenris clearly didn’t want to say it, and that was enough for Cato to guess. 

“Dead?” 

Fenris froze for a second, and then a look almost like relief came over his face, and he nodded. “Yes,” he said, breathing the word more than speaking it. “Your father is dead.” 

It hurt more than it should have. Cato didn’t even _know_ his father. “How long has he been dead? This whole time?” 

“Yes,” Fenris said. “I’m sorry.” 

_He’s been dead for years_ , Cato told himself. _He’s been dead for years and you never even knew, so you shouldn’t be--_ but he lost his fight with himself, and abandoned his half-eaten dinner to rush upstairs. 

He hated this day.


	10. Act 3 - Part 3

It was a cold night, but not inside. Not in _this_ house. For all the horrible things this house had been, it had never been cold. 

It was a very simple plan. Be clean. Be on time. Speak only when spoken to. Give him what he needed. Take his money. Leave. 

Don’t ask questions. Don’t feign academic interest. Don’t admit to personal interest. Don’t ever ask him questions, and don’t ask yourself questions when you go to bed tonight with his gold. 

He was a man of his word. He wouldn’t take more than she’d agreed to give him, and he’d pay her every copper he’d promised. She had nothing to fear. 

Varania had to keep telling herself that as she followed her old master through the house where she’d once been his slave. 

She felt big elven eyes on her, but they all looked away when she looked back at them. She knew these people once, and they knew her, but now she was a guest, not their equal. 

Finally, they stopped in the study. There were three vials sitting alone on a desk, as if they were being displayed. One was empty, one contained blood, and one held lyrium. There were two knives next to them, and Danarius looked right through Varania as he picked up both and handed one to her. A yellow-haired apprentice took a quick sip of the lyrium, then grabbed the vial of blood and opened it. 

“This had better work this time,” Danarius said, before turning to Varania. “Now,” Danarius said, and Varania hesitated just a second before slicing open her left palm, just as Danarius did. 

_Why did he need his own blood?_

Varania held her hand out over the empty vial, next to Danarius’, and the apprentice began to mutter a spell under his breath as he poor the blood from the other vial in along with Varania and Danarius’ blood. With three different sources going into one small vial, more than half of the blood ended up on the desk rather than in the vial, but there was a mat down to catch it, and Danarius did not seem bothered by it. 

When the spell was done, they waited. 

The vial did nothing. 

Danarius growled at his apprentice. “I told you this was a waste of--” 

“One more thing!” the apprentice said, lifting up the lyrium. Danarius seemed like he was about to object, but the apprentice cut him off: “It won’t make it work _less_.” Varania expected him to drink the lyrium, but instead, he held it over the vial of blood, and tipped a drop of lyrium in with the blood. 

Nothing. 

And then the vial glowed. 

The apprentice smiled. 

“With three people’s blood in it, we had better make sure it’s locked on the right mage,” Danarius said. 

“How do we do that?” the apprentice asked. 

Danarius stretched out an arm and guided Varania back and to the side. “We stand to the north,” he said. “If it points south, it’s locked on the right mage.” 

The right _mage_? No. Don’t ask questions. Varania stood still, and watched as the apprentice sealed the vial, and slowly turned in a circle. It glowed faintly when his back was to Varania and Danarius, and did nothing when he was facing them. 

That seemed to please Danarius. 

“South,” the apprentice said smugly. “Any time you want to thank me...” 

“I’ll thank you when we bring them back,” Danarius said. “Until then, this was just a neat trick.” He sighed, and then suddenly seemed to remember that Varania was there. “Thank you for your cooperation, Varania,” he said. He walked around the desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a bag of coins, and pushed it toward Varania. “100 gold coins, as promised. Have a nice life.” 

She didn’t need a better invitation than that to take his money-- _her_ money, now--and get out of his house.

~*~

“Get out of the way, brat!” And then there’s was pain on the back of Cato’s head. 

“What?” he said, turning around, blinking until the stars went away.

“ _My way_ ,” a well-dressed woman with just a hint of an Orlesian accent said. “You’re in it. Stand and look foolish elsewhere!” She gestured wildly toward the side of the street. 

There was plenty of room on either side of Cato for her to walk by, but noble women were like that sometimes. “Uh, sure,” Cato said, moving out of the way as requested. “Sorry, I guess. It’s just that... I don’t really know what I was doing here?” Cato really was trying to remember, but he had no idea how he’d gotten from inside his bedroom to standing in the rain several blocks from home. He was still in his night things, too. 

It was one thing to not remember things that had happened when Cato was three years old. It was another, far more worrying thing to not remember things that had happened three minutes ago. Why had he come here? Why had he left the house at all without getting dressed? Where was he going? 

“What you were doing was standing there inconveniencing everyone. Do it elsewhere.” the woman said. She and her friend walked past Cato and up the street without another glance in his direction.

“He brings the property value down every second he stands here,” said the friend. This woman’s accent was all Kirkwall.

“Picking a house to break into, no doubt...” 

“I suppose it’s not fair to ask them to keep those sorts in the alienage, but they could _at least_ keep them out of Hightown!”

Was she saying that because of his eyes? Cato had never thought much of comments like that before...

Cato wanted to defend himself, but that was harder when he didn’t have any idea why he actually had been looking around. Oh well. It was no use picking a fight with noble women anyway. He’d just get himself in trouble. Aveline would be so mad if she had to arrest Cato, even if Cato hadn’t actually done anything wrong. And then Fenris would be mad... 

Cato shivered. His clothes were soaked from the rain. Whatever he’d been doing out here, he wanted to go home now.

~*~

Darktown always smelled even worse than usual when it was raining. Cato’s shoes made a sick _squish_ sound with every step on a ground that was 90% mud and 10%... Cato didn’t want to know. At least in Anders’ clinic, the dirt was dry, and Cato wasn’t as worried about what might be mixed in with it. (Blood, often, but usually _just_ blood.) He wiped the worst of the mud from his boots before he stepped inside. 

There’s was an entire family in there, five of them, all covered in burns. Anders was working on healing a teenage boy whose burns looked much worse than the rest of the family. His skin was black and yellow, and Cato was sure he’d be screaming, if he weren’t unconscious. The rest of the family, an adult man and woman and two young girls, were waiting around with skin that was red and blistered, but no worse. In the man’s case, though, there was _a lot_ of red, blistered skin. 

Anders glanced over at Cato. “You’re not going to tell Hawke you’re here?” It had been a few weeks since that day, and this was Cato’s first time coming back to the Clinic. 

“Wouldn’t have come if I was.” 

Anders nodded. “Get to work, then.” 

Cato walked over to the man, but he shook his head. “You’re a healer?” 

“Yeah,” Cato said, but he said it with no confidence, and immediately felt silly about it. “I’m learning to be, anyway.” 

“My daughters first,” the man said. “Please.” 

Cato shrugged and did as he asked. He knelt down in front of the smallest girl, who was crying and whimpering into her mother’s dress, and he held his hand just over the only burn he saw on her, just above her left elbow. 

The girl’s whimpering stopped, as the blisters vanished and her skin slowly returned to its normal color. The skin around it, which was burnt but not as badly, slowly healed as well. There would be no scar. 

“Better?” Cato asked, when everything looked fine to him. 

The girl nodded. 

“Say thank you,” her mother said, her voice strained. 

“Thank you,” the little girl said.

“You’re welcome,” Cato said. He moved over to her sister. There were more burns on her sister, but the worst of them were on her legs, so he started there. “What happened, anyway?” Cato asked. 

“Cato,” Anders said, not looking up from the boy he was healing, “Do you like to be pestered about the bad things that have happened to you?” 

He remembered his conversation with Lila and Carly from the day the Templars came, and how even though they hadn’t said anything mean, he’d wanted to crawl into some dark, small place and stay there. “No,” he said. “Never mind,” he told the family. 

“People attacked us because we’re Fereldan,” the youngest girl said. “They called us dogs. But I was born in Kirkwall!” 

“I’m sorry,” Cato said. “That’s awful!” He looked over at Anders. “Is there something we can do?” 

“We can heal them,” Anders said, but he didn’t sound like he was really in the mood to talk. 

“But I mean--” 

“We can heal them.” 

So they did. Cato was able to heal both girls and their mother by the time Anders finished with their brother. Anders said the boy was going to have scars, but he’d be okay. He was awake by then. Anders healed the dad, and Cato was glad to just sit there and watch, because he was tired. Anders seemed to be tired too, but he was used to it. 

When he was done, the family thanked them both and left, and Anders sat down next to Cato on a crate and sighed. 

“Do people ever attack you and Hawke and Aveline?” Cato asked. 

“No one attacks Hawke and Aveline if they want to live,” Anders said. 

“What about you? You’re Fereldan too, aren’t you?” 

“Anti- _Fereldan_ prejudice isn’t really my biggest problem, Cato.” 

“You can have more than one problem,” Cato said. “After Corwin’s brother told everyone that I’m actually Tevinter, these boys in the alienage started calling me a Vint and a Magister, and saying I’m there to enslave them. It’s stupid.”

“Maybe what’s stupid is that everyone here thinks that ‘Tevinter’ and ‘Magister’ are dirty words. What’s so wrong with free mages?”

The question bothered Cato, like having something cold and slimy dumped on him, but he didn’t know why, and he didn’t want to fight with Anders, so all he said was, “Fenris says we’re _not_ Tevinter, because slaves aren’t citizens.”

“How convenient for Fenris.”

Cato dug a fingernail into the skin of his arm.

“Are you alright?” Anders asked.

Cato let go of his arm and hid the marks from Anders. “I’m thirsty.” He hopped off the crate and moved to the back, where Anders kept his personal supply of clean drinking water, but as soon as he opened the door, he backed away. “Ew! What’s that smell?!” 

“Alchemy,” Anders said. “It’s fine.” 

“It’s disgusting!” He shut the door. He was not nearly thirsty enough to drink anything from that room. “Remind me never to do alchemy.” 

“It’s only as disgusting as your ingredients,” Anders said. “And if I could have made this with honey and rose petals, I would have.” Anders sighed. “Maybe it’s more fitting this way.” 

“What does it do?” Cato asked. 

“Nosey, aren’t we?” 

“Is it a healing salve?” 

“No,” Anders said, more sharply. “It’s something for me. It’s personal.” He glanced around the clinic nervously, and froze, his eyes locking on a shadow running toward them. 

“Lila!” Cato said as soon as she was close enough for him to recognize her. “Are you hurt?” 

She shook her head, gasping for breath. “Fenris came by the alienage looking for you,” she said. “We told him you’d been there, and that you’d just left, but you have to get home now, or he’ll realize...” 

Cato looked at Anders quickly, then back at Lila. “Thanks, Anders,” he said, running for the exit. “Gotta go!” He ran right past Lila, but then slowed down and waited for her to catch up with him. She didn’t have magic. She shouldn’t be walking through Darktown on her own. 

“Thank you for coming to get me,” Cato said. They rounded the corner away from the clinic and walked briskly toward the elevator shaft. “You shouldn’t come down here, though.” 

“That’s what my parents always say,” Lila said, “but _you_ do it, and you’re fine.” 

“I have magic.” 

“But does anything ever even--”

~*~

“--happen?” 

Cato stopped, so suddenly that Lila took a few steps ahead of him before she realized it and stopped as well. She looked around quickly, wondering what had made her friend freeze so suddenly in this dark and scary place, but there was nothing. 

Cato looked around slowly. His expression was suddenly blank, and his eyes were strange. He looked right past Lila not once but twice, until he spotted the elevator. He moved toward it stiffly, like his body didn’t fit right, and walked right past Lila without so much as glancing at her. 

“Cato, is something wrong?” Lila asked, following him. 

He didn’t answer. 

“ _Cato_ ,” she repeated. 

Nothing. 

“ **Cato**!” This time, when he didn’t acknowledge her, she caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Okay, fine! Darktown is _scary_! I get it.” 

He pulled his arm away from her and kept walking. 

She followed him onto the elevator, and he continued to not say anything as they were lifted up to Hightown. 

He turned in the right direction to go back to his house. That was encouraging, at least. If he was going home, something in him knew what he was doing. 

But then why wouldn’t he speak to her?

“Cato,” she tried again, calmly this time, “Are you mad at me?” 

No answer. Lila wasn’t even surprised. Part of her wanted to huff and turn on her heel and march away. That would teach Cato. _This_ was the thanks she got for trying to keep him out of trouble? 

She couldn’t do it, though. She knew that Cato wasn’t just ignoring her. Something was really wrong with him. 

She hoped that Fenris would know what it was, and how to fix it. 

Lila and Carly had told Fenris that Cato _had_ been to the alienage, but that he’d just left. Fenris had said that he’d go check back at the mansion. Given that Lila had to wait until she could run out of the alienage without Fenris noticing, and that Darktown was out of the way, it seemed logical that Fenris would have beaten them back to the mansion. Carly could only hope that he had stayed there to wait for Cato rather than immediately setting off to look elsewhere when he realized that Cato wasn’t there. 

The fact that Lila running in behind Cato would immediately give away her lie was the least of her worries. She followed Cato into the mansion. 

“Fenris!” she yelled. “Come here!” 

And so he did. Fenris appeared in the main room within five seconds, looking at both Lila and Cato very sternly. 

Cato held out a hand so that his palm was toward Fenris and began to mutter something under his breath. 

Lila watched Fenris’ eyes flicker from her to Cato, and then to an unfocused look of fear as he realized realized, either from the blank look on Cato’s face or the fearful look on Lila’s, that something was wrong. 

Fenris squinted. “Cato...” he said, but he didn’t get any farther than that. He stumbled to the right and had just enough logic left in him to hit his knees first, before going down the rest of the way to the floor with his eyes shut. 

For a moment, Lila thought he was dead. Then she realized that his chest was moving, and that she could hear his deep breaths. They certainly weren’t her own. He was just sleeping. 

He was okay. He was just sleeping.

“Cato,” she said, running over to Fenris. “You shouldn’t do that!” She dropped to her knees beside Fenris and shook him, but this had no more effect on Fenris than than any attempt to snap Cato out of his trance had had. “You’re going to be in so much trouble when--” but when she looked over, she realized that not only was Cato not listening to her, he wasn’t in the room in anymore. She looked from Fenris to the empty doorway, and then made her choice and jumped to her feet to follow Cato. 

She caught Cato when he was nearly out the front door. 

“Cato!” she screamed, but he didn’t acknowledge her. He opened the door and left the house, without closing the door behind him. 

She needed to go get Hawke. But if she went and got Hawke, she would have to leave Cato, and she didn’t know where he was going, and he could get into any kind of trouble like this. He could walk off a cliff or get attacked by a dog and he probably wouldn’t even notice. She couldn’t leave him. But she couldn’t _help_ him on her own, either. 

When they walked into a crowded part of Hightown, she desperately started yelling “Go get Hawke!” and “I need the Champion’s help! Go get him! Tell him Lila and Cato need him!” at random passersby, but no one moved to help her. In fact, most people moved away from her, and pointedly looked in the other direction.

 _Shems_ , she thought. _Come on, just don’t be shems for **two minutes**_. But even the one elf she passed--clearly a servant on an errand for his employer--turned and veered to the left to keep far away from the little elven girl making a scene in the Hightown market. 

Finally, a guardsman yelled at her to stop. And she did, because her parents had taught her to be polite and good and always do what the guardsmen told her to do. She turned around, and even though she knew that wasn’t why he was stopping her, she said, “Help me!” 

“You’re causing a scene!” the guard told her, grabbing her arm firmly as if he were already half ready to haul her off to jail. He looked at Cato, who had kept on walking. “That boy wasn’t doing a thing to you!” 

“No,” she said. “It’s not him! Or, I mean, it _is_ him. _He’s_ the one that needs help!” 

The guard squinted and looked over at Cato. “Hey, kid!” he called. 

Cato kept walking. 

“Kid!” 

“He can’t hear you,” Lila said. “He’s not responding to anything. I think...” Cato might never forgive her for this, if she said it. But if she didn’t and something was really wrong, she’d never forgive herself. “I think it’s magic. Bad magic. Blood magic, maybe. If you won’t get the Champion then get the Templars, _please_. I have to stay with him.” 

The guard looked from Cato to Lila, then let go of Lila’s arm and nodded. She ran after Cato, and the guard turned and ran toward the Chantry. 

Cato headed out of the city and into the mountains. Lila had never been past the city walls in her life, and had no idea what they might encounter out there, but she couldn’t abandon Cato now. She followed. 

The Templars were coming. They would be here soon. They had to be. 

The farther they got from the city, the more she felt her legs shaking, and the more the path seemed to get steeper and darker and... 

She shoved Cato again, not because she thought it would work this time, but because she thought that it would at least slow him down and give the Templars time to catch up. Just as before, he stumbled backwards, and immediately stood back up and kept walking. It bought them a few seconds, but she noticed that he scraped his hand when he broke his fall, and even though it didn’t seem to be bothering him, she felt too guilty about that to want to try it again. 

So instead, she grabbed his wrist and dropped to the ground. 

He was human, and a boy, and she was small and elven and a girl, but he dragged her along more easily than those factors accounted for. She had to crawl to keep up with him, and when she failed at that, he dragged her along on the ground until she scraped up her knees and had to let go. 

It was getting dark, and soon they wouldn’t even be able to see the path to get back. What was she even doing out here? She couldn’t stop him, and he could be leading her into anything! 

No. She had to stay. The Templars were coming. 

The Templars were coming. 

She screamed, hoping that the Templars could hear her--that they _would_ hear her and that they’d run even faster because they heard it. Then she stood up, on legs covered in blood and dirt, and followed Cato farther up the mountain. 

Before they reached the summit, Cato veered to the left and exited the path. Lila had to watch her step as she climbed over roots and rocks to follow him, and she wasn’t sure how Cato was managed to get through it all, especially so fast, since he didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything. Lila followed for a few minutes and screamed again, louder than before, now, because the Templars needed to know they’d left the path. They needed to know where to find them. As she followed Cato, she began to scream more and more, in intervals of just a minute or two, until finally they stepped into a small clearing, and Lila froze. 

Cato froze too. One minute they were moving across the mountainside at an exhausting pace, and the next, Lila couldn’t move, and it didn’t look like Cato could either. 

“Oh,” an older shem man said, looking at Lila with icy blue eyes that made her shiver. “Are you what’s been making that awful noise?” 

There was a mage staff on his back, confirming all of Lila’s fears. 

Lila tried to scream again, but she couldn’t breathe. The only sound she could force out of her throat was a whimper, much too quiet for anyone but her captor to hear. 

The man smirked. “At least you’re quiet now.” There was something circular in his hand, glowing clearly in the dim light. Lila thought it was a magical compass at first, but then she realized that instead of directions on the inside, there was a dark red tube. Was that blood? 

Of course it was. This man was the blood mage. 

Just as Lila realized that, Cato’s head lulled, and he blinked hard. He grunted, and then the light came back on behind his eyes. He blinked a few more times, and then saw the man before him. 

He gasped. 

“Oh,” the man said, grinning. “Do you remember me?” 

Cato said nothing. He stared, open-mouthed, and moved his lips like he was _trying_ to reply, but he couldn’t quite manage it. 

A tall man with glasses appeared behind the blood mage. “He looks like you,” this man said. 

“Shut up,” the older man said. 

“We do have them,” the younger man pointed out. “Right now. Here they are. It worked.” 

“We have _one_ of them,” the older shem said. “And not the more important one.”

“Your hirelings will be here any minute now...” the younger man said, rolling his eyes. 

“Yes, well, in the meantime, restrain these two.” 

The younger man hesitated. “Both of them?” 

“Yes, Cornelius. Both of them.” 

There was another moment of hesitation, and then Cornelius snapped his fingers, and vines sprang up from the ground, pulled Lila and Cato down, and wrapped around them tightly. The older shem released whatever paralysis spell he’d put on them, but this allowed Lila only marginally more movement. 

“We can’t take her, though,” Cornelius said. “She’s not Tevinter. That’s illegal, Danarius. In the Imperium. There are treaties and--” 

“We’re not letting her go so that she can run off and get help,” Danarius said. “If you’d like to cut her throat and be done with it, I won’t stop you, but she’s worth at least twenty sovereigns and I see no reason to throw that away.” 

Lila whined and attempted to wiggle away with no success. 

Cornelius sighed. “Fine. You’re right. It’d be a waste. But I’m disavowing all knowledge of it if you get caught.” 

Danarius scoffed. “Elves arrived from Ferelden by the boatload just a few years ago. No one noticed. No one is going to notice _one_ missing little knife-ear from the Free Marches.” 

Cornelius looked at Lila for a few seconds and then sighed and shrugged. He didn’t feel sorry for _her_ ; she was sure of that. The look on his face was more like he was being bullied into stealing silverware. 

It took more than the few minutes Cornelius claimed for the men they were waiting for to arrive. Lila’s face had gone numb from being pressed against the cold ground. 

When the men arrived, they had something long and heavy in their arms. They dumped it on the ground unceremoniously. 

It was Fenris, still fast asleep despite the rough treatment. Cornelius snapped his fingers, and Fenris was bound just like Lila and Cato were. 

“Can we head out, then?” Cornelius asked. “The sooner we’re back in Minrathous and away from this dreadful cold, the better.” 

_No. Wait,_ Lila willed them. _Stay here just a little while longer._ The Templars were coming, and they would find them. They had to.

They had to. 

They did. Danarius insisted the remain until Fenris woke up, and not five minutes later, half a dozen men in gleaming Chantry armor rushed through the clearing, swords drawn. 

But they were expecting one blood mage, or maybe a handful of them. They were not expecting a team of slavers whose bows and knives were out before the Templars could even count them. 

Two of the Templars had arrows through their eyes before they could react. One Templar dispelled the magic around them, and Lila and Cato shifted to their knees. 

The Templar who had freed them paid for it with his life as a sword went through his chest. 

Two other Templars were devoured by grotesque monsters that could only have been demons.

Lila grabbed Cato’s arm and pulled, but Cato remained rigid and still. “But Fenris--” he said desperately, and that was a mistake, because the vines had reappeared around their necks within a second, leasing them to Danarius’ hand. 

The bodies of the Templars seemed to be scattered all around, some of them in multiple pieces. Even when tears filled her eyes and her vision became blurred, there was no mistaking that they were all dead. The fight was over, and with it, all or Lila’s hope of rescue. 

“Drop the act, Fenris,” Danarius said. “I know you’re awake.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Fenris said, “Of course, Master. I’m sorry,” and stood. He was leashed as well.

“Now,” Danarius said to Cornelius, “I think it’s time we go.”

The leashes around their necks tightened and shortened. Cato raised a trembling hand and gripped his tightly. At first, Lila just thought he was grounding himself, like when he pinched himself. Then, there was a flash of light. 

Cato’s body was hurled violently against the nearest tree. Fenris gasped, and Lila saw him tense up and enter a fight stance for just a second, but then he remembered his place and relaxed. 

Cato stepped away from the tree with blood pouring from his nose and shallow cuts in his face from the tree bark. 

Danarius walked over to Cato, grabbed him by the hair, and yanked his head back so that Cato was forced to stare into those icy blue eyes. 

“That was your one warning,” Danarius said. “Now that I have your mother back,” he glanced at _Fenris_ , “ _you_ are entirely replaceable. Remember that.”

Cato nodded stiffly, and lagged a little behind Fenris and Lila when Danarius made them start walking down the mountain. 

“Fenris,” Lila whispered, “Who is Cato’s mother?”

“Lila...” Fenris said in a pained voice, but he didn’t get to finish the thought. 

“Really, Fenris?” Danarius said with a cruel smirk. “I know you’ve never cared for the boy, but I didn’t think you were so ashamed of giving birth to him that you’d lie about it all these years.”

“What?” Lila said. “You...? How is that even possible? You’re--” 

“ _Lila_ ,” Fenris said, “ _please_.”

He looked so hurt that Lila couldn’t do anything but drop it. She cast her eyes to the ground, and walked in silence down the recently made trail, surrounded on all sides by slavers and Magisters. 

Lila didn’t even notice the dog barking until she realized that Fenris was listening to it intently. 

And then it just stopped. Everything was eerily quiet, and Lila could hear all of their footsteps on the ground as they moved. 

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She felt a tug on her leash, and then it went slack and fell off her neck. 

“Run!” cried a female voice Lila didn’t recognize. This time, she took off without waiting for Cato. She was glad when he appeared beside her, though A mabari followed hot on their heels: Sage. Lila had played with him enough to recognize him.

They moved up the mountain, away from the fighting, until finally Cato stopped and looked around. For a moment, Lila was afraid he was possessed again, but then he turned to her, very much himself, and waved to the west. “This way!” 

She followed him, and he led her a cliff ledge overlooking the trail where their rescuers had come. The fight was still raging down there, but from up here, it was little more than flashing lights and screaming. Once in awhile, the fire and electricity would stop for a few seconds and they’d be able to make out the figures. 

Cato laid down his stomach. Lila would really have preferred to keep running, but her legs were shaking and she didn’t trust herself to find her way through the unfamiliar mountains alone. She laid down with him, initially trying to keep as much of her body as she could off the ground, but then Cato touched her shoulder and a warmth spread through her, and it was okay.

Sage stood guard behind them, pacing in a semicircle around them and growling at every squirrel that got too close. It made Lila feel safer, but she was still afraid. 

Lila recognized Hawke. His staff was held high and he was making fire fall from the sky just a few feet above everyone’s heads. It seemed strange that that wasn’t hurting their side as well, but it didn’t seem to be. 

There was no mistaking Guard Captain Aveline, either. She was as much a public figure as Hawke, and her red hair was well known even in the alienage. 

Fenris didn’t have a sword, but he was glowing blue, and Lila saw enough red on his opponents to believe he didn’t need a sword. 

She didn’t recognize the other two: the woman who had freed her and Fenris and the man who had freed Cato. Both of them had dark brown complexions, and Lila was struck by how white the man’s armor was. It almost seemed to glow, and the phrase “Knight in shining armor” seemed appropriate. The woman looked Rivaini and was waving around daggers as big as Lila’s arms with the grace of a dancer. 

The fighting only lasted a few minutes. That seemed weird. In stories, it always sounded like epic battles over important things lasted for ages, but this fight ended in minutes with Fenris, glowing, lifting Danarius off the ground and pulling out his heart. 

Lila shifted onto her knees and watched the adults rush toward them. Sage continued pacing until Hawke got there and told him that it was okay now, and he was a good boy. 

Fenris hit his knees in front of Cato and reached to pull him into a hug, but Cato pulled away, sliding on the dirt and staring at Fenris with wide eyes. 

Fenris flinched like Cato had slapped him, and then slumped. 

“You lied to me,” Cato said. “You’re my mother. And my father...” He looked over the ledge to where Danarius’ body was just a spec on the ground.

Everyone was so quiet that Lila could swear she heard Fenris swallow. “Yes,” he said. “I did. I lied to you, and it was wrong, and I’m sorry. And as soon as we get home--” 

“No!” Cato said, crawling backwards as far he could without falling off the ledge. His eyes were shining, and Lila noticed a shaking that she didn’t think had anything to do with the cold. “I don’t want to go home with you.” 

“Cato,” Fenris said. “I...” 

“Alright,” Hawke said, trying to sound calm. “Cato needs time. That’s--That’s understandable. It might be best if he spent a few days away from home. Do you want to come home with me instead, Cato?” 

“Hawke--” Fenris said.

“He’ll be safe,” Hawke promised. 

Cato looked at Hawke quietly for a few seconds. “Did you know?” he asked. 

Hawke hesitated. “I--” 

“No!” Cato said. He stood, and he ran around Fenris and Hawke, toward the trail. 

“Wait!” the man in white armor said, reaching out for Cato but not touching him. 

Cato stopped running, at least. 

“I didn’t know,” the man said. “I swear it.”

Cato turned around. 

“So if you need to go somewhere,” the man said, “come back to the Chantry with me. You’ll be safe there. We have extra bedrooms, plenty of food, and...” He took a deep breath. “I’m a priest. We’re good listeners, if you want to talk. But you don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to. No one has to talk in the Chantry.” 

Cato sniffled and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Can we go now?” 

The priest looked over at Fenris. 

Fenris nodded.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” the priest said, walking over to Cato. He wrapped an arm around Cato’s shoulders and led him up the trail. 

Everyone watched, still and silent, until they were out of sight. 

Lila stood. Her legs were bloody and her hair and clothes were dirty and the warming spell Cato had cast was wearing off, but she was okay. She was okay and the bad men were dead, so everything was fine, and she had no reason to cry. 

She cried anyway, even as she told herself that. 

“Lila--” Hawke said.

“I w-wanna... go... home...” Lila sobbed. 

“Of course you do,” the Rivaini woman said. “I would too, if I were you.” She reached out uncomfortably, and patted Lila on the back like she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do. 

“Take me home,” Lila said. 

“Yes,” the Rivaini woman said. “I’ll do that. Right now.” She took Lila's hand. “I'm Isabela, and I'm going to take you home.” Lila spent half the walk to the alienage lagging behind Isabela, staring at the knives on her back.


	11. Act 3 - Part 4

It was a small room. Clean. A couple of candles and a window. A one-person bed with a thin blanket. A table. There was a bronze sunburst symbol on the longest of the plain white walls. 

It wasn’t homey, but it was as good a place as any to sit and be mad at all the most important people in your life, Cato guessed.

“It’s not as fancy as Hawke’s estate,” Sebastian said, “but--” 

“It beats a slave ship.” Cato shrugged. 

“Right,” Sebastian said. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Do you want anything? Food? A book? An extra blanket?” 

“Food,” Cato said. “And, if you can get them, maybe some paper and a pen? I want to draw.” 

“I’m on it,” Sebastian said. He disappeared, and Cato laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, and tried to make himself feel like he was at home. It didn’t work. It was weird here. People were singing downstairs. 

Sebastian came back with an apple, two loaves of bread, and a handful of uncooked carrots--“All I could round up from the kitchen; sorry.”--and, more importantly, some paper and a pen. It would all have to be in black and white, but it was still soothing to be able to just draw for a little bit and zone out. 

“Do you want me to stay?” Sebastian asked. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” 

Cato nodded. “You can stay.” 

Sebastian sat down against the wall near the door with a book.

The apple wasn’t the kind Cato liked. It was sour. Cato ate it and didn’t say anything to Sebastian about it. The bread was a little hard, but not bad. The carrots were carrots. Cato didn’t love them or hate them. 

Cato sketched dragons. Big and ugly and scary. Well, they’d have been scarier if he could get the noses right. Their faces all looked kind of squashed. After the fourth attempt, Cato resigned himself to the fact that he was never going to get this right. He wadded up the paper and then tore it into pieces and threw the pieces to the floor. 

Sebastian watched.

Cato felt Sebastian’s eyes on him and stopped. He looked at Sebastian. 

“Can I say something?” Sebastian asked. “You don’t have to say anything, but can I?” 

“Sure,” Cato said. 

“The first time I was in one of these rooms, I was so mad I pulled the sunburst off the wall and threw it at the window.”

“Did you break it?” Cato asked. 

“The window, or the sunburst?” Sebastian asked. 

Cato shrugged.

Sebastian smiled slightly. “I didn’t break either. It’s pretty thick glass and those sunbursts are sturdier than they look. It made my guards mad, though. They grabbed me, one of them lectured me about how I was embarrassing my parents...” 

“Why’d you have guards?” 

“To stop me from embarrassing my parents,” Sebastian said. “That was the point. But I was _so_ mad at them, that was all I wanted to do.”

“Why were you mad at them?” Cato asked. 

“Because they sent me here. I felt betrayed. I thought...” 

“Your parents are supposed to want you,” Cato said. 

“Yes,” Sebastian said. “Yes, they are. Are you mad at your parents, right now?” 

Cato shrugged. 

“Are you mad at your father?” 

Cato looked down at the thin blanket and said nothing. 

“Are you mad at Fenris?” 

“Yes,” Cato said. 

Sebastian nodded. “Sometimes when we think that they don’t want us, when we feel betrayed, they were really just trying to protect us. I...” Sebastian thought for a second. “I was mad when my parents first sent me here. But fifteen years later, I’m still here. Because my parents understood things I didn’t, and this was where I needed to be to become the man that I am today.” 

“Your parents didn’t lie, though. And they didn’t say that they never wanted you.” 

Sebastian squinted. “Did your--Did Fenris say that?” 

“ _Fenris_ didn’t.” 

“And you believe Danarius?” 

“You weren’t there,” Cato said. “You didn’t see how Fenris reacted.” 

Sebastian was quiet. He closed his book and swallowed, and he thought for what seemed to Cato like a really long time. “Danarius is your father.” It was really a question, but he did seem to want some confirmation. 

“I guess,” Cato said. “Do you think I look like him?” 

Sebastian looked away. “I--Well, I didn’t really look at him, during all of the fighting, so...” Sebastian shook his head. “Look, Cato, the point is that Fenris may not have wanted to... to do what he had to do to create you--” 

“Have sex with Danarius,” Cato said. 

Sebastian nodded. “That’s a bit crude, for the Chantry, but yes. He may not have wanted to do that. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want _you_.”

“You weren’t there,” Cato repeated. “And I think I want to be alone now.” 

Sebastian nodded and stood. “Alright. Good night, Cato.”

~*~

Cato awoke to fighting in the hallway. That was worrying on its own, and it definitely didn’t help that the word that pulled Cato into full alertness was his own name. 

Sebastian’s voice was clear first. “I don’t care! You are not going to drag a _child_ out of the Chantry where he has come for sanctuary!” 

“Sebastian,” the Grand Cleric said, “calm yourself. Meredith serves the same Maker we do, and is trying to do right by him.” 

“Thank you, Your Grace,” the Knight-Commander said. 

“However,” Grand Cleric Elthina said, “Sebastian is right in this. The child has come to the Chantry for shelter, and we will not hand him over to those he is fleeing. The Templars stationed here will do their duty as well as those in the Gallows would, should the need arise.” 

“If we let one apostate go after he caused the death of good Templars, it will never end,” the Knight-Commander said. 

“He’s a child!” Sebastian said. “The maleficar responsible for the deaths of those Templars isn’t here. He’s dead. Cato is just as much a victim as those Templars.” 

“Mages are never just innocent victims,” the Knight-Commander said, “no matter how young and cute they are.” She sighed. “But I will obey Your Grace in this.” 

“Thank you, Commander.” 

Cato opened the door a crack and peeked out into the hall. 

He ended up looking right into Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian turned and watched Meredith walk away, and once she was down the stairs, he walked over to Cato and Cato opened the door. 

“Do I have to leave the Chantry?” Cato asked.

“No,” Sebastian said quickly. “I think you should definitely _not_ leave the Chantry right now.” Cato stepped back so that Sebastian could step inside the room. 

“Does the Knight-Commander want to arrest me?” Cato asked. 

“‘Arrest’ is a harsh word,” Sebastian said.

“Not the point,” Cato said. “Does she want to do it?” 

“It’s her job.”

“So you think she _should_?” Cato asked. 

“Would I have sent her away, if I thought that?” Sebastian asked. “I think that if you grow up to be half the mage that Hawke is, you’ll serve man best as a free mage.” 

Cato looked down. “What if I don’t?” he asked. “What if I grow up to be like my father?” 

Sebastian opened his mouth and then froze. “Don’t,” he said after a second. “We don’t need to talk about that. Just don’t do it. Your parents are not your destiny.” 

“So you’re not going to be a prince?” 

Sebastian shrugged. “If I do, it’ll be because I want to,” he said. “Because _I_ decide that it’s the right thing to do. It will be my decision, not my destiny. Don’t turn something that’s your decision into your destiny. You’re not a different person today than you were yesterday morning.” 

Cato kept his eyes on the floor. “I feel different.” 

“That’ll pass,” Sebastian promised. “Do you want to be a Magister?” 

Cato shook his head. “No. I want to be a Grey Warden. Or a healer. Or a healer and a Grey Warden, like Anders.” 

“I’m sure the Grey Wardens could always use more healers,” Sebastian said, smiling. “The world could always use more healers. And more Grey Wardens. So do that. Be a warden or a healer or both--but not like Anders. And don’t be a Magister.” 

“Anders is the only healer I know,” Cato pointed out. 

“That doesn’t make him a good teacher for you,” Sebastian said. Then, less seriously, he added, “You’re busted, you know. Knight-Captain Cullen got wind of what was going on when that group of Templars left the Chantry, and he told Hawke. Hawke went straight to Anders. Anders told him everything.” 

“But there’s no reason to tell Fenris!” Cato said. “ _Anders_ didn’t kidnap me!” 

“You disappeared from Anders’ doorstep,” Sebastian said. “And if it hadn’t been for your friend, you and Fenris could have been long before anyone realized what was going on. Hawke is going to tell Fenris. He probably already has.” 

Cato huffed. “So Fenris is mad at me, on top of everything else. Great.” He flopped down onto his bed.

“Anders and Hawke wanted you found and brought home safe,” Sebastian said. “They got that. That’s what matters.” 

“Not if Fenris hates me,” Cato said. 

“He doesn’t.” 

Cato shrugged. “Maybe I could go live with Anders.” 

“You don’t want to do that. The Chantry is much nicer.” 

“Yeah,” Cato said. “I guess it doesn’t smell as bad. When’s breakfast?” 

Sebastian laughed. “Several hours ago. Priests like to get up at dawn and eat before we sing the Chant. Lunch will start in about an hour, but I can round up some food for you before then, if you want.” 

“I can wait,” Cato said. He’d probably just get more carrots if Sebastian tried to bring him something now. “Can I ask you something, since you already know about me working in Anders’ clinic?” 

“Of course,” Sebastian said. 

“Did the Templars bring a girl and a baby in here a few weeks ago?” 

Sebastian nodded. “Yes, they did.” 

“What happened to them?” 

“The teenage girl stayed here for a day or two until she felt well enough to leave, and then she did. The Chantry found a home for the baby.” 

“Oh,” Cato said. 

Sebastian sat down next to Cato. “You don’t sound happy.” 

“I was just hoping they’d stay together.” 

“That might not have been what was best for the baby,” Sebastian said. “Or the girl.” 

“That’s what Anders said.” 

“Anders isn’t always wrong.” Sebastian sighed. “Was that teenager the baby’s mother?” 

Cato nodded. “Yeah.” 

“We thought so.” Sebastian looked at Cato the way that Isabela had looked at Lila the night before, like he wanted to do or say something comforting, but couldn’t think of what. “The people we gave the baby to, they’ll love her.” 

“Okay,” Cato said. “Doesn’t change the fact that her mom didn’t.” 

“She did love her,” Sebastian said. “Enough to do what was she thought was best for them both. It’s hard to judge a situation you only see one side of. Harder still when you don’t really see either side. I don’t know who either of those little girls are or what their situation was. Neither do you. We did what we could for them. Beyond that, it's in the Maker's hands. 'The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next.'”

~*~

Fenris waited for two long days, hoping that his son would walk through that door at any moment and say that he was ready to talk now. 

It didn’t happen, and Fenris knew he had only himself to blame. Cato had been ready to talk years ago. For how long had he been asking questions about his parents? _Fenris_ hadn’t been ready to talk. 

“And are you now?” Hawke asked, when Fenris vented these frustrations to him. 

“I think I have little choice now,” Fenris said. “Cato needs me to be ready.” 

“Then go talk to him,” Hawke said. “If you’re the one that shut that door, it’s not fair to expect _him_ to open it.”

Hawke was right. Fenris didn't want Hawke to be right, but he was. Cato couldn't be expected to keep reaching out and trying to start that conversation again and again when Fenris had done nothing but shut it down and lie to Cato about it for years. If Fenris wanted to make this right, he had to take the first steps, no matter how hard they were. He had to tell Cato everything. No more secrets, and no more lies. 

The walk to the Chantry had never felt so long. Sebastian showed Fenris to Cato’s room, and when Fenris knocked, Cato invited him to enter, no doubt expecting Sebastian. Fenris entered anyway. 

Cato was stretched out on the bed, sketching on a few loose sheets of paper. Griffins? The last time Carver was in Kirkwall, Cato asked him just what Grey Wardens really were and what they did. Carver had spun a glorious tale for Cato about impossible odds against dark monsters, and riding into battle on the backs of griffins in days long past. Cato had been captivated ever since. 

“Cato...” Fenris said, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

Cato stopped drawing. He didn’t turn to look at Fenris. 

Fenris steeled himself. Cato was small and confused and hurt. Fenris shouldn’t make it into something it wasn’t. He had to keep reminding himself of that. “I know you don't want to see me right now,” Fenris said. “And you don’t have to turn around, if you don’t want to, or answer me. I just wanted to apologize.”

Cato put his quill down. 

That was encouraging. Fenris took a deep breath, and said, “I'm sorry. You never should have found out what you did in the way that you did... I had planned to tell you when you were older. I thought that perhaps you would handle the knowledge better in ten years...”

“Really?” Cato asked, his voice oozing with doubt. 

“That’s what I told myself,” Fenris admitted. “Whether or not I would have gone through with it in ten years, I cannot say.” Cato tensed up again. “It doesn’t matter. I was wrong. Even if I had told you, I would still be wrong. You shouldn’t have had the knowledge of who your parents are dumped on you when you were twenty-two any more than you should have had it dumped on you when you were twelve. You should have grown up knowing, like any other child.”

Cato was quiet for a minute. “You’re my mom,” Cato said. It wasn’t a question. It just needed to finally be said. 

“Yes,” Fenris said. 

“And you hate my d-d...” 

“Yes,” Fenris said. “I hate Danarius. _You_ don’t have to,” though Fenris really hoped that he would, “but I can’t pretend that I don’t.” 

Cato nodded. Fenris felt the child’s whole body shake with the staggered breath he drew in, but Cato spoke in a surprisingly steady voice: “So you didn’t want to have sex with him?” 

Fenris swallowed hard. “... No. I didn’t want to have sex with him.” Strange. Fenris had never really said it before; not in the first person; not without pretending that it had happened to someone else. Hawke had said it for him, even used the R word, the night that Fenris told Hawke, and Fenris had been grateful, but saying it himself was something very new. ‘Want’ was not a word that had been in Fenris’ vocabulary back then, and once he’d acquired it, he hadn’t wanted to apply it retroactively. 

But now he had, and he swallowed the vomit that rose up in his throat and he stayed strong for his child. He had to. 

“Sebastian said you probably didn’t,” Cato said, and Fenris could hear the tremble in his breath. Cato gave a painful-sounding swallow of his own, then said, “Did it hurt?”

Fenris closed his eyes and breathed deeply. This was Cato’s story too. Fenris wanted Cato to have all the answers he wanted. Still, Fenris tried and faltered a few times before he actually got the word “No,” out of his mouth. It was easier from there. “Not that part... I don’t think he wanted to hurt me.” Danarius had stretched Fenris first, and even lubricated him, because if Fenris’ body knew how to provide it's own lubricant, it certainly hadn’t been in the mood to do so. 

“But when I came out,” Cato said, “That hurt?”

Yes. Fenris could remember experiencing greater pain only once before or since. He didn’t want to say that to his child, though. “Giving birth _always_ hurts,” Fenris said. “I’m sure the Archon’s wife didn’t have a _painless_ childbirth despite having every good healer in Minrathous attending to her. I don’t want you to worry about the pain.” 

Cato said nothing, and put his head down in his arms.

Fenris put his hand on Cato’s back, and when Cato didn’t pull away from it, Fenris rubbed circles into his child’s back. “ _You_ did not hurt me, Cato.”

Cato shook his head. “I look like him, don’t I?” he said. 

Fenris hesitated. His hand stopped moving on Cato’s back as he scrambled for a way to answer the question.

“Thought so.”

Fenris sighed, and began rubbing again. He couldn’t lie. Better to just tell the truth, and soften it by doing so. “Before his hair turned grey, it was dark and curly, like yours,” Fenris said. “You have his cheekbones, and maybe his nose, and yes, you are human, as was he--”

“And a mage, too.” Cato turned around now, and looked at Fenris with big green eyes. “I could stay here, if you want. They’d let me be a priest, as long as I didn’t do any magic. Or I could go to the Circle... or maybe Hawke could ask Carver to make me a Grey Warden?” The last suggestion was almost hopeful, compared to the first two, but he still sounded upset. “Please? I know they wouldn’t let me fight darkspawn yet, but I could train until I’m older.”

“Why would you join an organization you don’t like _or_ an organization that can’t use you?” Fenris asked. 

Cato shrugged. “You never wanted me,” he said. It didn’t sound accusing.

There it was, like a punch to the gut. “Do you--” But Fenris choked on the words, and had to try again. “Do you think that because _he_ said it?” 

Cato looked away from Fenris again. “Is it true?” 

“No,” Fenris said. “I didn’t... I _couldn’t_ take care of you, back in Minrathous. With the position I was in and the life I had to lead, I _couldn’t_. But I wanted you to be happy, and safe. I wanted you... I wanted you, when we were away from Danarius and I _could_ want you.” 

Cato looked at Fenris again, but otherwise didn’t answer. 

“Cato...” Fenris thought carefully about his next words. “I did not choose to have you. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you. I came here to apologize principally because I _owed_ you an apology, but also because I want you to come home.”

“You do?” Cato said, perking up a little. “I won’t do magic anymore, and I’ll--I’ll cut my ears so I look like an elf, and--”

“No!” Fenris said quickly, “Don’t do that. Any of it. I want you to come home just as you are.” He looked Cato in the eyes. His big green eyes. Fenris’ eyes. “Cato, I have not been a good parent. If I had been, you would never have needed to be _told_ that I was your mother. You would have known from infancy, like other children...” How could he explain this to a child? “But that wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. Even when I was neglecting you, I knew it wasn’t your fault.”

“But don’t I remind you of him?” Cato asked.

“No,” Fenris said immediately. “You are nothing like him.” 

“Except that I’m human and a mage and--” 

“Not like him,” Fenris said. “Yes, he was your father. Yes, it is true that you are human because of him, and you are probably a mage because of him. If I really wanted to sit down and think about it, I could probably come up with other things that you are because of him, but I don’t want to. It doesn’t matter.” Fenris looked into Cato’s eyes and held his gaze. “These are superficial things. You are _my_ son, and in every way that matters, you are nothing like him. You are not the _kind_ of mage or human that he is.”

Cato moved closer to Fenris, just slightly. 

“Something else, though...” Fenris said. “You have my eyes. And my jaw line. Hawke says you wrinkle your nose like I do...” 

Cato smiled. 

“Merrill says that all elves in Arlathan possessed magic,” Fenris said. “So you might not get that from him. It might be elven magic.” 

“I’m not an elf, though,” Cato said, half laughing. 

Fenris shrugged. “I don’t see how you could possibly be any less a descendant of the Elvhen than I am.” 

“You really think so?” 

“I think it’s for you to decide what your place in elven _and_ human society is,” Fenris said. Cato seemed to like that. Fenris took a deep breath, and since he was in a Chantry, and it couldn’t hurt, he offered a quick, silent prayer to any Maker who might be listening. “Cato, there is _nothing_ about you that I would change. Not your ears, not your magic, not your hair...” Fenris sighed. “I just want you to come home. Exactly as you are. _Please_ , come home.” 

“You really want me to?” 

Cato was smiling at him. Fenris was so relieved, tears pricked his eyes. “Yes.” 

“Okay,” Cato said. He immediately began to gather up his things. “Fenris, I--” Then he stopped. “Or... should I call you ‘mom’?”

Fenris opened his mouth, but nothing came out. 

Cato frowned. “You don’t want me to.”

“No,” Fenris said quickly, “if you want to, do it. It will take some adjusting, but I will adjust, if that’s what you want.”

“I could call you ‘dad’?” Cato suggested. 

“No,” Fenris said firmly. “I am not your father and I do not wish to be referred to as him. Call me your mother. It’s what I am, and I’m not ashamed of it.” 

Cato thought about it. “Maybe just sometimes?” he said. “Would that be okay... mom?”

Fenris nodded. “Yes, that is okay.” It _was_ strange to hear, and yet an incredible relief, too. Cato loved him, and accepted him as his mother. After everything Fenris had done, Cato still wanted him as his mother. It was more than Fenris deserved. 

Fenris felt light, as they left the Chantry. Danarius was dead. Hadriana was dead. Yes, Danarius had other apprentices, but Fenris doubted that any of them would be brave enough to come after their inheritance. Fenris and his child were in a free city-state, and they weren’t being hunted. 

The pleasant thought made the process of cooking Cato a fish dinner bearable. Fenris’ own dinner ended up consisting of rice and vegetables and bread, which would be filling enough, and it was nice to see Cato happy. Home and safe and happy. 

Cato was nearly finished with his dinner when he looked up, hesitated for a second, and said, “Mom...?” 

Fenris prepared for the worst. “Yes?” 

He saw Cato pinch his arm under the table, a nervous habit Fenris had noticed before, and didn’t know what to make of. “I know where babies come from.”

Fenris took a deep breath, and forced down his knee-jerk horror at that statement. “Anders’ doing, I assume?” 

“Basically,” Cato said. 

Fenris could kill Anders later. He forced himself to breathe deep and focus on the task at hand. 

“Um,” Cato said, “So do you have...?” 

It was not a question Fenris relished being asked by his son, but Fenris supposed that it had always been inevitable--Cato would have found out where babies come from sooner or later--and it was better that they get it over with now. He did, however, have to consider his words for a moment. This needed to be put delicately. The rape and the Magister father were quite enough shocking information for Cato to absorb right now. He didn’t need to know about the sacrifices. Not yet. Not in those words. 

“The parts that allowed me to bear you...” Fenris said, “were... temporary.” 

Cato took a few seconds to process this. “So you don’t normally have... those parts?” 

“I had them only long enough to conceive, carry, and deliver you,” Fenris said. 

“I’m sorry,” Cato said. 

“Don’t be,” Fenris said. “Half the world’s population lives with those parts every day and they get along fine. Many who don’t have them wish they did. Under other circumstances, that part might have been fine.” 

Cato made a face. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Fenris said casually. “And since nothing like that will ever happen to you, I’m the final authority.” 

Cato paused, and stared at Fenris for a second. Then his face changed, to something more curious and also more frightened. 

“Any questions you have, Cato,” Fenris said. 

“...Was it hard?” Cato asked. “Not--I mean. Killing him. Was that hard?” 

“Because he was your father?” Fenris asked. 

Cato shrugged. “Any reason.” 

Honesty. He had promised Cato that. “No,” Fenris said. “Running away from him was hard. Actually _freeing_ myself from him was much harder. Once I had done that, however, killing him was easy.” Almost too easy. Talking about it left Fenris unsettled. 

Cato nodded, then took another bite of his fish and chewed slowly and thoughtfully. When he swallowed, he said, “How did you do it? Free yourself from him?” 

“I don’t think what worked for me will work for you,” Fenris said softly. “I’m sorry. You’re going to have to figure this out on your own.” 

Cato didn’t respond. 

“Was it hard to watch?” Fenris asked. 

Cato nodded. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You told me my father was dead,” Cato said, without looking up. 

“I had meant for it to be true before you saw him again,” Fenris said. Cato flinched slightly, and Fenris amended: “but that does not excuse the lie. I’m sorry.” 

“‘S okay,” Cato mumbled. “It hurts to talk about it, doesn’t it?” 

“Pain is some necessary for healing,” Fenris said. “But it’s your healing that’s important right now, not mine. If you don’t want to talk about it, we can stop.” 

Cato nodded. “Let’s stop.” 

They finished their dinner, and Cato went upstairs to his bedroom. It felt... different. Less safe than it had before. That day that he’d woken up on the street, Danarius had been test driving the blood magic that he’d used to kidnap Cato. Cato knew that. Danarius had done that to Cato right here, in Cato’s own home, in his own bed. And then the second time, when Cato had been taken “from Anders’ doorstep,” as Sebastian had put it, Cato had come back here and attacked Fenris. 

Cato wasn’t safe here anymore. Even with Danarius dead, Cato wasn’t sure that he was safe _anywhere_. When he went to bed that night, he pulled his thickest blanket over his head, except for a little crack that he could see out of, and he laid there, not sleeping.


	12. Act 3 - Part 5

Cato was wide awake when someone kicked down the front door. The noise echoed through the old and empty house, and Cato jumped halfway the ceiling. 

_Danarius is dead,_ he reminded himself. _Danarius is dead. Who else would come after you?_

As soon as his brain supplied the answer, it was confirmed: 

“This is Knight-Commander Meredith of the Templar Order! Bring the apostate out with his hands up!” 

Cato froze. 

“If you do not cooperate, we will use force!” 

Cato couldn’t get out of bed. He was sure that if he tried, his knees would give out beneath him. 

He knew he wasn’t safe here. He’d thought it was about his dad, but it wasn’t. The Templars wanted him. Why _now_? Because of his dad? Because of the Templars who’d died trying to save Cato and Lila? 

Fenris stepped through the wall. He walked through over to Cato, eyes glinting in the dark, and pulled the blanket off. 

“Shhhhh,” Fenris said. “Get on my back.” He turned around, and without argument Cato wrapped his legs around Fenris’ waist and his arms around Fenris’ shoulders like a child half his age. Fenris opened Cato’s bedroom window, stepped out of it, and closed it nearly on his foot before he climbed, not down to an escape route but _up_ , past where they could have escaped to the Chantry or to one of the other homes in the neighborhood, to the top floor and then onto the highest part of the roof. Cato heard Fenris grunting with the effort of climbing a wall with bad footholds with a child almost his own size on his back, but they made it. 

Fenris dumped Cato off his back as gently as one can dump anything, then quickly laid down beside him. 

“As long as we’re quiet, they won’t look for us up here,” Fenris said. 

Cato could only hope he was right. 

They laid there in total silence, huddled close together for what little warmth that provided them both in their pajamas. Hours passed. The Templars searched every room of the house, perhaps twice, and it was well into the night before they officially decided that the apostate wasn’t home and the bulk of them left. At least two remained, one outside their front door and one somewhere inside the house. 

Fenris waited another twenty minutes after the majority of the Templars had left and then sighed. “We’re not getting a better shot,” he said. He turned and again offered his back to Cato. “Come on.” 

Cato climbed on, and Fenris went down across the wall that surrounded their neighborhood. He moved to the east of that, and then swiftly climbed down the wall to the public square, dropping the last ten feet and landing hard on his bare feet. 

“Are you alright?” Cato asked, hearing how his mom had hissed in pain. 

“I’m fine,” Fenris said, though there was a pinch to his voice that indicated otherwise. He grabbed Cato’s hand--again, like Cato was half his actual age--and began to march them toward Hawke’s house. “Don’t run,” he said, “but walk quickly.” 

The instruction was not necessary. Cato could not have gotten to Hawke’s door fast enough, and he nearly knocked Orana over getting inside when she answered the door. The sound of the commotion drew Hawke out of his room without him needing to be summoned. 

“Fenris? Cato?” Hawke asked, taking the stairs two at a time to get down to them. “Is everything alright?” 

“No,” Cato said while Fenris was still trying to think of a more diplomatic answer. “The Templars came last night.” 

“They-- _Fuck_ ,” Hawke said. He looked immediately to Orana. “Shut the door, lock it, and do not open it for anyone until further notice.” 

Orana obeyed quickly. 

“Fenris, we need to talk,” Hawke said. “Orana, please show Cato to his room and get it ready for him. I’m sure he needs sleep, with the week he’s been having.” 

Cato followed Orana to the room he had stayed in before, and thanked her politely. There wasn’t much she needed to do, since the bedding was already clean. It was a little cold, but Cato knew spells to help with that, so he told her that it was okay, and she could go. 

The Chantry clock struck midnight. 

Instead of crawling into bed, Cato crawled into the wardrobe. It felt safer there. It was small and dark and he could hide. He waited there, not sure what he was waiting for, until he heard a soft knock on the wardrobe door. 

“Can I come in?” Fenris asked. 

“It’s gonna be crowded,” Cato said. 

Fenris opened the wardrobe door. 

“I’m short,” he said. “I can stand. Would you like some light?” 

“Sure,” Cato said. 

Fenris stepped into the wardrobe carefully, placing his feet between Cato’s, closed the door on them, and activated his lyrium markings. 

Cato stared up at Fenris for a long time before finally saying, “I don’t want to leave Kirkwall.” 

“Understood,” Fenris said. 

“That’s not the same as promising to stay.” They always left when slavers came. Now the slaves would probably stop coming, but they’d have to keep running from Templars. It wasn’t fair. Cato didn’t even remember anywhere but Kirkwall. “All of my friends are here. And who would teach me magic if we left and Hawke stayed here?” 

Fenris nodded. “Those are legitimate concerns.” 

“And _you_ don’t want to leave Hawke either.” 

Fenris said nothing. He and Cato stared at each other in silence. 

“I don’t understand,” Cato said. 

“What?” Fenris asked. 

“Lila can’t marry me because she has to marry an elf. But you don’t live in the alienage. You could marry anyone.” 

Fenris smiled, but it looked like it hurt. “It’s not that simple, Cato,” he said gently. “There are rules about these things.” 

“You said we weren’t slaves anymore.” 

“But we’re not citizens either. And even if we were... Hawke isn’t an elf-blood, Cato. He’s just human. That sort of thing is discouraged, here in the Free Marches.” 

“I know _that_ ,” Cato said. 

“We’re also both men. Most priests won’t--” 

“Sebastian would.” 

“Sebastian would be laicized the moment he considered it... Which might not be the worst thing for him, but it's not something I intend to be responsible for.” 

“But Hawke’s the _Champion of Kirkwall_. If he wanted--” 

“We don’t know what Hawke wants,” Fenris interjected. 

“Hawke,” said a voice from outside the wardrobe. A second later, the wardrobe door opened again, and Hawke looked into Fenris’ eyes. “Hawke would like it very much if you both would stay.” Hawke glanced down at Cato shyly, then back up at Fenris. “And if we could talk about some things that we are long overdue to talk about.” His voice was soft. Not at all accusing. “ _Really_ talk about. In private?” 

Fenris looked down at Cato. “Will you be alright?” 

“I’m fine,” Cato said. 

Fenris deactivated his markings, trying to hide his flinch as he did so in the darkness, but Cato saw it anyway. Fenris stepped out of the wardrobe behind Hawke, and shut the wardrobe door behind him before he followed Hawke into the hallway. 

They were gone long enough for Cato to get stiff and have to shit positions twice. He had no idea what Hawke was saying to Fenris, but he hoped that it would be enough to convince Fenris to stay, and that... 

Cato just wanted Fenris to be happy. Hawke too. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how they felt about each other. Cato had his reasons for not telling Lila how he felt, but Fenris _could_ tell Hawke how he felt. Or Hawke could tell Fenris. Hawke did seem to be better at feelings than Fenris was. But if one of them would just say something, then they could be together. Happy. Here in Kirkwall. They could be a family. They all three just wanted to have a family, and they could have it. 

There was another knock on the wardrobe. 

“You can open the door, Fenris,” Cato said. 

Fenris did. There was a small smile on his lips, and a calm in his eyes that Cato hadn’t seen there in days. 

Cato smiled. 

“Very well,” Fenris said. “We will stay in Kirkwall. Hawke is going to go speak to the Knight-Commander in the morning and we’ll see if we can’t get everything sorted out with the Templars.” 

“Good,” Cato said. “And _you_ and Hawke?” 

Fenris looked away. “We talked,” he said bashfully. 

“And?” Cato asked. 

“We _can’t_ get married,” Fenris said. 

“But...?” 

Fenris smiled. “We _can_ stay here, at Hawke’s estate, and Hawke and I... will figure things out between us. Slowly.” 

Cato nodded. “Fenris?” he asked. “Mom?” 

“Yes?” 

“Did you need my dad to die before you could be with Hawke?” 

Fenris’ smile dropped away, but he didn’t look angry. He considered the question. “It’s difficult to think about the future while still running from the past,” he said. “So yes. I suppose I did. I needed to feel secure before I could take a risk like this. I just hope that _you_ are secure enough for this.” 

Cato laughed. “With Hawke? Yeah. I think I’ll be fine.” 

“Good,” Fenris said. “Now get out of there. It’s bed time.” 

“So is this my room now?” Cato asked, climbing out of the wardrobe and stretching out his legs. “Like, forever?” 

“It can be if you want it to be,” Hawke’s voice said from the hallway.

Cato gasped. He hadn’t realized that Hawke had been listening in. Fenris, on the other hand, didn’t not look at all surprised. 

“Yeah,” Cato said, once he’d recovered. “I like this room.”

~*~

That night, Cato stretched out in his new bed, and he felt... not as good as he should have. He loved Hawke. He wanted Fenris and Hawke to be happy. He himself had pushed Fenris and Hawke to finally talk to each other. But something didn’t feel right. The issue of the Templars was still unresolved, sure, but that wasn’t quiet it. Cato knew that the Templars weren’t going to come after him here, in Hawke’s house, but he still couldn’t stop tossing and turning and feeling like there was something he’d forgotten. 

In a sense, he’d forgotten everything. It was all sill back at their house. But if Hawke sorted things out with the Templars, maybe Cato would be able to go get it later. That wasn’t the problem, though. 

Cato gave up on sleeping at dawn, and got out of bed to make himself some tea. 

Hawke was already up and drinking coffee at the table. 

“You’re up early,” Hawke commented with no sense of irony. 

“So are you,” Cato said. “Can I have some coffee?” 

“No. Help yourself to the tea, though.” 

Cato knew how to make his own tea, and he could use magic to speed the process up, but he was half tempted to try to sneak some coffee anyway. Hawke wasn’t looking. Cato had a feeling Hawke would know, though. Cato made the tea. 

“So why are you up so early?” Cato asked. “Even Orana isn’t up yet.” 

“And yet you are.” 

“Is it Fenris?” Fenris had joined Hawke in his Hawke’s bedroom last night. Cato could only assume that they’d shared the bed. “Does he snore? Or kick? I’ll bet he kicks.” 

“Fenris is an extremely polite sleeper,” Hawke said. “If you must know, the problem is Knight-Commander Meredith.” 

Those words killed the good mood in the room. Cato sat down at the table with his tea and played with the spoon as he shoveled sugar into his cup. “Is she after you?” Cato asked.

“Not that I know of,” Hawke said, “but it’s not a good sign that she’s after _you_. Meredith’s up to something, Anders is up to something...” 

“Is this because I’ve been helping Anders in the clinic?” Cato asked. 

Hawke shook his head. “The Templars don’t want Anders for the clinic. It’s part of it, because he’s a mage, but he has their _particular_ interest for other reasons, and I hope you haven’t been helping him with any of that...?” He raised his eyebrows as he trailed off. 

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Cato said honestly, looking into Hawke’s eyes. “I’ve only been helping in the clinic.” Was it the alchemy? It didn’t seem like a good idea to ask. Cato had just said he didn’t know anything about it, and if he followed that up with a question that hinted that he _did_ know something about it, Hawke might get the wrong idea. Cato didn’t want to make any more trouble for himself or for Anders. 

“Good,” Hawke said. “Then I’m sure they’re not mad at you for the clinic. I _hope_ that they don’t even know about that.” 

“Then this is about my dad?” Cato said. 

“I believe so,” Hawke said. “Sebastian said that Meredith took the loss of those Templars hard?” 

Cato stirred his tea. “They came to the Chantry,” he said, keeping his eyes on his drink. 

“So Sebastian mentioned.” Hawke sighed. “Meredith _can_ be reasoned with. I’ve seen it done before. I’ll go talk to her later, and I’m sure we’ll get everything sorted out.” 

“Okay,” Cato said. 

There was maybe a minute of silence. Cato decided to actually take a drink of his tea, and Hawke finished his coffee. 

“Is that why you can’t sleep?” Hawke asked at long last. “Are you worried about the Templars?” 

Cato could have lied. It was a convenient excuse, and Hawke would believe it. It felt somehow disloyal to both Hawke and Fenris to admit the truth, and yet he did: “No.” 

“When then?” Hawke asked. “You can tell me.” 

And he could, couldn’t he? Hawke had kept Cato’s secrets before: the drawings, Anders... 

“I want to see my dad’s body,” Cato said. 

Hawke drew back slightly. “Why?” he asked. 

Cato shrugged. 

“I’m going to need more than that,” Hawke said. “That body’s been there for days. _If_ there is anything left of it, it’s not going to be pretty.” 

“I don’t want it to be pretty,” Cato said. “I want it to be dead. I just... I was really far away, when you were fighting, and I was so busy being scared, I... I watched, but I didn’t look. I want to look.” 

“And you’re prepared to find something rotted and half-eaten?” Hawke asked. 

“I worked in the clinic. I’ve seen gross stuff before.” 

Hawke sighed. “I guess I can’t tell you how to deal with this. I’ll go ask Fenris.” 

Cato stayed in the kitchen and finished his tea. Hawke wasn’t gone long. He probably just poked his head in the bedroom door and asked Fenris for permission while Fenris was still in bed. 

Hawke came down after a few minutes with one of his sweaters pulled on and his trousers changed, and he tossed Cato one of his jackets. “Roll up the sleeves,” Hawke said. “It’s chilly out there. You’re not going in just your pajamas.” Hawke also made Cato force himself into a pair of Orana’s shoes. They weren’t super girly, though, and it probably was better than walking through the mountains barefoot, or in his dirty socks. 

Cato followed Hawke quietly until they were out of the city, and then he couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Do you think Lila hates me, after what happened?” 

“No,” Hawke said immediately. 

“But she could have been killed,” Cato pointed out. “Or enslaved. Or anything.” 

Hawke shrugged. “If I went around hating people the first time I was in mortal danger because of them, I’d have no friends.” 

“Not even Fenris?” Cato asked.

“Fenris and I wouldn’t have made it through the night we met.”

Cato laughed. 

“Remember when I fought the Arishok for Isabela?” Hawke asked. 

“I’ll never forget,” Cato said. It had been a big night. The Qunari had invaded and Cato had been captured and then he and Hawke had used magic in front of everyone, even though they weren’t supposed to, but they hadn’t been arrested then. 

“It wasn’t really her fault,” Hawke said. “She didn’t make the Arishok do all of that. And you didn’t make Danarius use blood magic on you. Good friends don’t hold things that aren’t really their fault against each other. You’d forgive her if it had been the other way around, right?” 

Cato nodded. “I guess.” 

Cato stewed on that for the rest of the journey. 

Honestly, the bodies were in better shape than Cato had expected them to be. They were bloated, and there were bites taken out of some of them and a hole in the chest of a couple of them that Cato did not think was the doing of an animal. 

And there was Cato’s father. Cato could see the remnants of black in his curly hair. Beyond that, it was difficult to see himself in the features. They were too bloated and discolored. 

There was broken glass beside the body. 

“Your phylactery,” Hawke said, seeing Cato’s eyes on the glass. “It’s what he used to control you. We destroyed it before we left.” 

“Good,” Cato said. His eyes were drawn to another glittering piece of metal: a gold chain around Danarius’ neck which seemed too clean for the monstrosity of a body it was hanging around. 

Without giving himself time to talk himself out of it, Cato reached down, followed the chain to the pendant on the end, and, so that he wouldn’t have to touch his father’s corpse anymore than necessary, pulled hard and snapped the chain. 

The pendant was the same shining gold as the chain. Cato wasn’t sure what the shape was supposed to be, but it looked like a bunch of connected triangles, which spread out at the top and came down to a thin point on the end, with beautiful sapphires at every angle. 

“I thought you looted the bodies after you killed people,” Cato said. “How did you miss this?” 

“We wanted to get back to you kids. We didn’t stop to loot.” 

Cato kept staring at the pendant. “So can I have this?” He looked up at Hawke. “It’s probably safe, right?” 

“I don’t see how it could not be,” Hawke said. “It’s all yours, if you want it.” Hawke chuckled awkwardly. “Congratulations, you’ve just looted your first body.” 

Cato didn’t laugh. “Can we burn the bodies?” he asked. 

“You haven’t even checked the pockets yet.” 

“I don’t want to touch them. I just want them gone.” 

“Alright,” Hawke said. “Go ahead. Any fire spell will do.” 

Cato stepped back, so that he wouldn’t be burnt. He clutched the pendant in his left hand and raised his right, but it shook, and he dropped it back down to his side. “You do it,” he said. 

“Are you sure?” Hawke asked. 

“Yeah. You do it.” 

Hawke nodded, and tossed a fireball onto the corpses as easily as if he were flicking away a bug. 

The stench was horrible, but Cato breathed through his mouth and he sat down on the dirt upwind of the bodies, and he watched them burn. Tears stung his eyes as the flames destroyed Cato’s father, his master. It was grotesque and horrible and it was _over_ , for better and for worse. No more fear of slavers coming in the night. No more fantasies of loving parents coming and taking him to a happily ever after. It was all out in the open, and Cato would just have to live with it. 

Hawke sat down beside Cato and put an arm around his shoulders, squeezing comfortingly. Cato leaned his head against Hawke’s body. They said nothing for a long time, and then Hawke asked, “Do you want me to speed things up? We’ll be here all morning if I don’t.” 

Cato nodded. “Yeah. I’m... Go ahead.” 

The advantage of magical fire over regular fire was that Hawke could wrap up what would have taken hours in a matter of minutes. There was nothing but ash left when he was done, and it was impossible to distinguish the ashes of one Tevinter slaver from another. 

Once Hawke had finished, he stood, and he immediately turned and helped pull Cato to his feet, though Cato didn’t really need the help. 

Cato still clutched the pendant in his left hand, but the points of the triangles were poking him, so he slipped it into the pocket of Hawke’s jacket. 

“Did you really tell Fenris where we were going?” Cato asked.

“Yes,” Hawke said. 

“So why didn’t he come?” 

Hawke hesitated for only a second. “He didn’t want to see it.” 

That was good enough for Cato. They walked in silence, but Cato stayed close to Hawke, and Hawke slipped his arm back around Cato’s shoulders.


	13. Act 3 - Part 6

Something was _wrong_ when they stepped back through the gate to the city. Cato could feel it. It wasn’t that the market was abandoned; there were plenty of people around, perhaps even more than there usually were in the morning, but they were the _wrong_ people. None of them were running market stalls, and Cato saw their armor glint in the street lamps as they stepped out the shadows and drew their swords. 

They were surrounded by Templars. 

Cato took a step back and began to raise his hand, but Hawke’s hand was on Cato’s shoulder in a second, squeezing so hard it was painful. Probably harder than Hawke meant to. “Don’t you dare,” Hawke said, not to the Templars, but to Cato. 

Hawke looked at the woman walking toward them. She had long blonde hair, and Cato remembered her from that day in Viscount’s Keep. Anders had always told Cato to avoid her at any cost. 

Hawke forced a smile. “Is there a problem, Knight-Commander?” 

How often did people ambush the Champion of Kirkwall with their swords drawn and then politely ask for autographs, Cato wondered. 

“I showed you leniency, Champion,” Meredith said. “I had hoped that you would be an example to the mages of this city, a servant of man that they could imitate, but you have betrayed me at every turn.” 

“Meredith, I have never--” 

“Did you think we wouldn’t find out about the blood mage?” Knight-Commander Meredith demanded. “Or the Darktown healer? Or your apprentice?” 

“I haven’t been _hiding_ my friends,” Hawke said. 

“Then you admit it,” Meredith said. “You sheltered a blood mage. You aided the mage rebellion. You led a Tevinter Magister right to this city.” 

“I _killed_ a Tevinter Magister _outside_ of this city,” Hawke said, trying to keep his voice level but struggling with it now. 

“Do you think it helps your case to confess to only _two_ of the three crimes laid at your feet?” Meredith asked. 

Hawke said nothing. 

“I will give you one chance to surrender.” The Knight-Commander’s voice was iron. Cato wanted to run, but Hawke’s hand was still on his shoulder, still painfully tight, and it kept him grounded enough to stay where he was. 

“Surrender?” Hawke said quietly. His eyes scanned the crowd of Templars, and Cato screwed his eyes shut and sank into Hawke’s side, waiting for the flash of light and the heat that would end it all. “... As opposed to murdering a dozen of the Maker’s finest in the Hightown Market?”

Confused, Cato opened his eyes just on to time to see Knight-Commander Meredith smirk. 

“Yes,” Hawke said. “I’ll surrender.” With the hand that wasn’t bruising Cato’s shoulder, he reached up, pulled his staff from its holder on his back, and threw it to the ground between himself and Meredith. 

Cato wanted to scream. 

Hawke shot a nervous glance at Cato as the Templars approached. “Do everything they tell you and _wait_ ,” Hawke said. “Everything’s going to be alright. Just trust me.”

Every instinct Cato had said to do the opposite of that, though; to turn on his heels and run back out of the city. He might be able to lose the Templars in the mountains. Templars walking toward him like slavers had just days before. His father’s lifeless eyes. No air in his throat. 

“Cato!” Hawke yelled. It was the last clear thing Cato heard before everything went... blurry. It was like he’d suddenly fallen into water. There was sound, but it didn’t make sense. He couldn’t recognize faces, and suddenly his body felt too heavy. He dropped to his knees. It hurt and it didn’t really help. Still couldn’t breathe. 

A Templar hauled him to his feet and slapped chains on him. He was marched through the streets at a punishing pace, stumbling all the way until his vision cleared halfway to the docks. Still tired. He was dead weight as a Templar tossed him onto a boat. Hawke wasn’t coming to the rescue this time. Hawke was _here_ , just as captured as Cato was. 

Cato tried to hold on to Hawke when they got to the Gallows, but the Templars pulled them apart. Hawke let them do it. 

Cato was dragged inside, rushed down hallway after hallway until they came to one that was completely abandoned, and then dumped in an empty cell and left there, all alone. 

Hours went by. No one came. Cato began to sorely regret not at least wolfing down some fruit before he and Hawke left that morning. And he was thirsty. And he had to pee. His body needed to make up its mind about whether there were too many fluids in it or not enough.

He found his mind wandering to what he knew of the history of Kirkwall and of this place in particular. It used to house Tevinter slaves. Did Cato have an ancestor on Fenris’ side who was once locked in this same cell, feeling just as hopeless and alone? The thought was not comforting. 

Perhaps Cato had an ancestor on his _father’s_ side who had locked slaves in here, then gone upstairs to count the piles of money on his desk. The thought was horrifying. 

The horror flipped in Cato’s stomach, and turned suddenly to something else entirely. 

Cato didn’t _have_ to hate his father, but he did. This was all his fault. Everything stupid thing wrong with Cato’s life was _Danarius’_ fault. He was a Tevinter mage locked in a slave's prison, because of Danarius. He was a shem in the alienage and a mutt in Hightown, because of Danarius. He had these stupid scars, and the only reason the Templars were mad at Cato--and at Hawke--was because of Danarius. 

It could have been easy. Danarius could have had another slave do it. Cato could have been born with pointy ears and no magic, and maybe he’d have a dad and maybe he wouldn’t, but things would be easier for Fenris, and he could join the Dalish with Lila, and--

When Cato finally cried, they were tears of rage, not sadness. He _hated_ Danarius. Fenris would be happy about that, at least. 

If Fenris ever found out. 

Another hour at least went by. Cato stopped crying, but his head hurt. He might have tried to sleep it off, but he had to keep his legs crossed tight to keep from wetting himself. Were they _ever_ going to come for him? Had they just put him down here so he could quietly die? They didn’t do that, did they? 

A mage with a brand on his forehead came down with a chamberpot and wash basin just when Cato was beginning to think that he couldn’t hold it anymore. It took care of one problem, at least. No food or drinking water, though, and the man didn’t answer when Cato asked for it. 

Was it night yet? Cato felt like he’d been down here forever. 

It may have been the next morning, for all Cato knew, when the door at the end of the hall opened and a Templar walked to Cato’s cell. He paused there for a moment, studying Cato through the bars. He had some of the curliest blonde hair Cato has ever seen, and he looked upset about something, though his voice was steady: “I am Knight-Captain Cullen. The Knight-Commander says that if you’re finished throwing a tantrum, we can make you a phylactery and you can sleep with the other apprentices tonight.” 

It took Cato a moment to process what had been said. Sleep? That would be nice, yes. On a bed, not just the stone that was in here. Other apprentices? Cato didn’t care about that. He had friends in the alienage. He didn’t need friends in the Circle. Phylactery? Like Danarius made. No. But Hawke said to do everything they told him..

Cato managed to stand. He followed the Templar down two hallways in complete silence, until they rounded a corner where Cato could see sunlight. It had the same bluish color that it had when Cato and Hawke had been arrested, though Cato suspected that now it was setting rather than rising. Still, it cheered Cato to see it, if only because it reassured him that the outside world did still exist, and was not entirely out of reach. 

Cato was led into a cold, dark room where a single mage was waiting with a knife and a set of kid-sized robes. The mage told Cato that he had to change into the robes, and since this did not seem like a hill worth dying on--perhaps literally--Cato left Hawke’s jacket and his own pajamas in a pile on the floor and pulled on the ugly mage robes instead, stopping only to take the pendant out of the jacket and slip it into his mage robes instead. 

Then, Knight-Captain Cullen told him to hold out his hand. 

It was a simple enough command, and there would be food if they got this over with quickly, so Cato complied without struggle. 

When Knight-Captain Cullen drew the knife, it was too much. Shem men towering over Cato with blades, scars on his arm, the lifeless eyes of Magister Danarius--

He started to back away, looking around for a better exit than the crowded hallway they had come in through, but the Knight-Captain caught him. One metal Templar gauntlet gripped Cato’s left hand, while another gauntlet brought the knife closer by the second. Cato couldn’t get out of the grip, so he tried to just squeeze his fist shut. 

That made no difference. The Knight Commander cut the back of Cato’s fist, and the blood began to flow into a vial like something out of a nightmare Cato had been having for as long as he could remember. 

Then, Cato was on the floor. This was an odd thing to realize. He had no idea how he had gotten from the Knight-Captain’s arms to the floor, but he was certain that he was lying on stone, without so much as a rug to soften it. 

“--starving him before you take his blood! Any healer could tell you--”

“Look!” the Knight-Captain said, gesturing to Cato. “He’s waking up! He’s fine! I told you he would be. They always are.”

Cato didn’t want to be here. He looked around, until he spotted a long, low table that he could just fit underneath. He crawled under it. He had to lay on his side with his legs pulled into his chest, and his feet still stuck out the bottom, but this was better. 

The Knight-Captain sighed. “Look at him. He’s not ready for general population yet.”

“Yes,” the mage said emphatically, “He _is_! Or he would be, if you would stop doing all in your power to make this as traumatic as possible for him!”

“I have followed procedure in every way!” The Knight-Captain said, stepping toward the mage threateningly. “And procedure dictates that if he’s acting like this--” 

“ _Don’t_ follow procedure,” the mage said, but suddenly his tone was more pleading than angry. “Just for a little bit. Give him a chance. Leave us, and if I can’t get him to go down to supper calmly and behave himself, then you can take him back to solitary.”

The Knight-Captain looked from the mage to Cato, and then sighed, but this time it lacked the frustration of his sigh when Cato had crawled under the table. “Very well,” the Knight-Captain said. “If you can get him down to dinner before it’s time to clean up, we’ll _try_ letting him sleep with the other boys tonight.”

The Knight-Captain left, and the mage walked over to the table where Cato was hiding and sat down. He was quiet for several seconds, waiting to see if Cato wanted to move or speak first. Cato didn’t. 

The mage put a hand on the floor, not quite touching Cato but close enough that Cato could touch him, just as one might do for a skittish cat. Cato _wasn’t_ a cat, though.

“My name is Senior Enchanter Godric,” the mage said. “What’s your name?”

Cato said nothing. 

They sat there in uncomfortable silence until Godric’s resolve broke and he tried again: “I know it’s been a hard day.”

The worst day of Cato’s life. Or at least in the top three. 

“But all of the hard parts are over now. We’ve made your phylactery. It’s not going to happen again. No one will hurt you if you come out. You could go downstairs and eat with the other boys. Aren’t you hungry?”

Cato’s stomach hurt. He wasn’t sure if that meant that he _should_ eat or that he definitely shouldn’t. 

“It must have been terribly lonely in solitary.”

Lonely wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Lonely meant no one to hurt you.

The silence returned, and this time it lasted much longer than last time, well past the point of deep discomfort.

“I bandaged your hand,” Godric said at last. “These sorts of wounds are hard to heal magically, but we at least got a bandage on it to keep it clean while it heals on its own.”

Cato held out his left hand and look at it. There was indeed a white bandage around it. It was sloppy work, compared to the bandages Cato had seen Anders and Fenris put on, but it was doing the job. There was already a bright red line where blood was seeping through it, though. 

Without sitting up, Cato pulled the bandage off. 

Godric looked like he was going to object, but then changed his mind. “Yes, I suppose it’s reasonable to want to see the damage...”

Cato looked at the deep gash on the back of his hand, then held his other hand over it and let the healing magic flow. 

When he stopped, he was just as cut as before. 

He looked at Godric and raised an eyebrow.

Godric understood the question. “There are some types of magic that interfere with the connection to the Fade, and this is one of them.”

Blood magic. Anders had explained that to him. It was very difficult to heal wounds inflicted by blood magic.

“I’m sorry that it hurts,” Godric said, “and that we can’t just heal you. I didn’t want to do that to you, but we have to. It’s over now.”

There’s no point in putting the bandage back. It was bloody, and the gash seemed to have stopped bleeding.

Cato hid his head in his arms. He stayed like that for a while, then moaned.

Godric nodded sympathetically. “Lack of food, loss of blood, and stress will do that to you. The only cure I can offer is food and sleep. You heard what the Knight-Captain said. Would you like to go get dinner?”

Cato shrugged. Crawling out of his hiding place was trickier than crawling into it had been, but he managed. He followed Godric silently, until Godric opened the door to a large dining hall. Cato had never been in one room with so many people in his life. Everyone sitting down with food was in mage robes, though. There were Templars about, but all of them were standing and none of them were eating. Did the Templars eat somewhere else, then? 

Cato scanned the crowd for Hawke, but didn’t see him. Where was he? He wouldn’t have left without Cato, would he have? Was he still locked up? Had the Templars _hurt_ him?!

There was nothing Cato could do to find the answers to these questions right now. Godric led Cato over to a table where a group of boys around Cato’s age were chatting and playfully flinging food at each other. 

“Justin,” Godric said, addressing a boy with dark bronze skin and a head full of long brown corkscrew curls, “this is Cato. He’s new here, and he’s been having a rough first day. I would really appreciate it if you and your friends would make him feel welcome.”

“Sure thing,” Justin said. The boys all packed in closer to make room for Cato at Justin’s right.

“So are you transfer-new or _new_ -new?” Justin asked Cato. 

Cato opened his mouth, but sound didn’t come out. 

Justin waited a moment, and then nodded. “That’s alright,” he said. “You’re new-new. I can tell.”

“So what,” a blue-eyed boy across from Cato said, “you don’t talk?”

“It’s better than you blubbering all through your first week,” Justin snapped. “Enchanter Godric said he’s had a bad day. He’ll talk when he wants to.” Justin looked around at the platters of food on the table. “Someone get him a cookie,” Justin said, nodding down the table. “A bunch of cookies.”

The blue eyed boy jumped up quickly. Cato’s fingernails had found their way into the bare skin of his arm again. When the blue eyed boy returned and set a napkin full of six cookies down in front of Cato, Cato reached for one and discovered blood on his finger tips. He awkwardly wiped it on his robes before grabbing and biting into a chocolate cookie. 

Justin watched it all. “You alright?” he asked. 

Cato shrugged. 

“The first days the worst,” Justin assured Cato. “But once they’ve made your phylactery, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Most of the Enchanters are nice. Templars will leave you alone,” an elf with braided hair scoffed next to the blue-eyed boy, and Justin added, “unless you’re really unlucky. Anyway, they might put you in class with the little kids for a while, just to catch you up, but you’ll still get to sleep and eat with us, and as soon as they can, they’ll move you up to our class.” 

Cato was pretty sure he did not need a remedial magic class. He didn’t say that. He just nodded to show that he was listening. 

That seemed to encourage Justin a little bit. “And there are cookies at dinner every night and you don’t have to do chores here.”

Cato nodded again. He’d never had to do much in the way of chores at home, either. Fenris made him keep his room livable, but it was often messy. Other than that he make a minimal effort to clean up after himself, Fenris asked little of Cato. 

“And you’ll get to be friends with us,” the blue-eyed boy said. 

Justin smiled. “And we are pretty cool.” 

Cato smiled a little. They seemed alright, anyway. 

The cookies were good. Not as good as Orana’s, but Cato had no complaints. After the second one, though, their sweetness started to seem like a bit too much. Cato reached for some bread and meat as the other boys introduced themselves. 

The blue-eyed boy was Clark. The elven boy was Jem. There was also Brian, Jack, and Ron. 

“And I’m Justin, obviously,” Justin said when the other boys were finished. “I’ve been here longer than all the other mid-levels. Like, _all_ of them. Not just these guys. I don’t even remember my parents.”

“The mid-wife slapped Justin after he was born and he threw a lightning bolt at her,” Clark said, not too cruelly. 

Justin laughed. “For all I know!”

“The only thing I remember about my mother is her hair,” said Brian. His accent was like Sebastian’s. “It was really long, and bright red...” He sighed. “Anyway, at least you lot have always been in the _same_ Circle.” He looked at Cato to explain what the others clearly already knew: “My first Circle burned down. I lost all my stuff, they made us ride all the way to Kirkwall from Starkhaven in carriages, and we couldn't even open the blinds on the windows, _and_...” He held up his hand to reveal an X-shaped scar on his palm. “I had to have a second phylactery made. Wasn’t even my fault.”

Cato made a face. 

Jem squinted at him. “You an elf-blood?” he asked, with just a hint of a smile. “Your eyes reflect light.”

Cato shrugged one shoulder and smiled a little, trying to convey not so much “I don’t know,” as “I guess.”

Jem seemed to get the message. He smiled back. 

“That doesn’t matter here,” Justin said, clearly trying to be reassuring. “A mage is a mage.”

“The First Enchanter is an elf,” Jem said. “Mages mind themselves, usually. As for the Templars, if you think anyone’s being harder on you because of those eyes, let Knight-Commander Meredith know. She’s a shem--” 

“--and a lot of other shit,” Brian added helpfully. 

“--but she won’t stand for racism in her Gallows.”

Cato nodded. It was nice to hear Jem talk to him like that. It made him feel almost like he was back in the alienage. He was aware that that was a wish to trade one prison for another, but the alienage had been a home-away-from-home for years, even if not everyone made him feel welcome there. Maybe this place could be a home of sorts too. 

The pain in Cato’s stomach dulled as he put more and more food into it. Water helped too. He still didn’t talk, but the other boys kept talking, moving on to a conversation about a book they’d all been reading. Cato wouldn’t have had anything to contribute even if he’d felt like talking, but it was relaxing to hear them talk to each other. It made this place feel more real and survivable than it had this morning. 

Then, there was a noise, like having an arrow fly an inch away from your ear, so fast you heard the air move. Cato shivered. 

A pink light that was far too aggressive to be the setting sun spilled in from the windows, washing the world in a rosy tint. This whole day had been so odd that Cato might have accepted that as a normal part of life in the Gallows, if everyone else in the dining hall hadn’t immediately gone silent and looked at the window with the same stunned expression as Cato. 

Several mages stood, but the two Templars closest to the windows waved them back down, and went to look for themselves. They glanced out the narrow circles in the wall, glanced at each other, and then spun on their heels. 

“Lock the doors!” one of the Templars yelled, fixing the Templar closest to the door with a look that did not allow argument. “Now!” 

All at once, the room was loud again. Godric and a few other men around his age stood up and began to speak to the Templars, but Cato couldn’t hear what they were saying over the frantic chattering of the other apprentices. It didn’t matter. It was obvious enough the mages lost whatever argument they’d made, and the Templars sent them back to their table with metaphorical tails between their legs. 

“Everyone remain where you are!” The Templar who had ordered the doors locked said. There was a pinch to her voice, as if an invisible hand were pressing down on her throat. “Continue with your meal. This will... This will all be resolved shortly.” 

“ _What_ will be resolved shortly?” Brian asked. “Whatever happened, she bloody _knows_ that none of us did it! We were all right here!” 

“The First Enchanter’s not here,” Jem said. 

“So?” Justin said. “He takes meals in his office all the time.” 

Jem shrugged. “Might be nothing. But the Champion of Kirkwall isn’t here either, and Elizabeth _swears_ she saw the Templars bring him in this morning.” 

“Maybe it was just someone who looks like him,” Justin said, clearly uncomfortable. 

“Yeah,” Jem said, dropping his head into his hands. “Someone who _looks like_ the Champion of Kirkwall is brought in, the First Enchanter misses dinner, and the sky turns pink and we all get locked in the dining hall. It’s probably nothing.” 

No one could argue with that, so they sat in silence while everyone else’s theories and worries buzzed around them. Cato kept eating, and he drank some water. It made his head feel almost entirely better, and his stomach feel a little better. The other boys picked at their food, or just tapped their silverware on their plate to make noise or play with it. 

After at least the third time that Brian declared, “They’re never going to let us out of this room,” the door was blown in, and the Templar next to it was on fire before anyone could properly assess what had happened. A stone fist spell hit him right in the skull, and he died at the feet of three women who ran into the room with their bangs stuck to their foreheads by sweat, and blood staining their mage robes. 

“The Rite of Annulment has been called!” one of the women yelled. “Fight or die!” 

The remaining Templars drew their swords. 

It was a good thing Justin and Jem were there, or Cato would never have made it out of that room. Fire began to fall from the ceiling and lightning and ice zoomed in all directions. Every step ran the risk of you getting frozen or electrocuted or burnt, and standing still did nothing to reduce the odds. Justin and Jem had to all but drag Cato out of the room, and he was more grateful for them doing it than he could say. 

Things were easier in the hallway, away from the violence and the magic. The apprentices were all running in one direction. Someone was yelling “Apprentices to the lower library!” Cato had no idea where that was, but it seemed like a safe assumption that it was where everyone else was going. 

They did indeed end up in a library, packed tightly into a space too small for this many people. As soon as the flow of people stopped, the doors were slammed shut, locked, and frozen over for good measure. 

No one seemed to have planned beyond that. Things were just as tense in the library as they had been in the dining hall before those mages arrived, and no one was doing anything about it. 

Cato didn’t know what the Rite of Annulment was, but he was afraid. 

“We’re dead,” a tall human boy said. He was one of the older apprentices. He may have been as old as twenty. He drew in a breath slowly, as if it pained him, and then let it out and repeated, in a soft voice that was almost calm, “We’re dead.”

“Shut up, James,” said elven girl said. She was around James’ age, though the top of her head only reached his shoulder. “You’ll scare the kids.”

James laughed brokenly. “What does that matter?” he asked. “They’re all going to die. _We’re_ all going to die!”

“You don’t know that!” the elf said. “We’ve got the Champion of Kirkwall fighting for us! If he could defeat a Qunari army, who says he couldn’t defeat the Templars?”

“He’s a mage! If he could defeat the Templars, he’d have done it years ago! Deal with it, Anwen! We’re dead!”

There was a sharp noise as Anwen slapped James across the face.

James stared at her in shock for a moment, then shoved her away from him hard. 

“Stop!” Another older girl said, catching Anwen and glaring at both of her peers. “Do you want to make the Templars’ jobs easier by killing each other before they get here?” She looked around the room, at Cato and all of the kids here who were younger than Cato, and she sighed. “You’re both wrong,” she said. “We’re not going to just sit here and wait; not for death _or_ for rescue. We need a plan!”

“Did you have one in mind?” James asked. “We’re trapped on an island and we _can’t_ win that fight. The Enchanters can’t win it; never mind _us_.” 

“So we need to get off the island,” Anwen said, looking at the other girl. “But we can’t swim it. The little ones would die for sure.” 

Someone out of Cato’s view suggested using ice spells to freeze a path through the water, which would expose them to Templars but at least _the majority_ of them would probably make it across. The merits and failings of that plan were still being debated when Cato saw a flash of familiar blue light, and turned around to see Fenris step through the door, and the ice. 

“Fenris!” Cato yelled, and he shoved everyone in his path out of his way until he was in his mother’s arms. He didn’t even feel silly for it. He was certain anyone else would have done the same in his position. 

Fenris held Cato close and kissed his head. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said quietly, and there was a fear in his voice that Cato had never heard in it before. But then his voice hardened. “Come. We have to get you out of here.” 

Cato offered just enough resistance to make Fenris stop when Fenris tried to pull Cato through the crowd. 

“We need to get _everyone_ out.”

Fenris sighed. It was not a sigh of defeat. “Cato,” Fenris said, “I feel for these mages. I do. But I did not kill a dozen Templars on my way here just to lose you to Abominations.” 

“No one’s going to turn into an Abomination!” Cato promised. “They’re not like Magisters! And I could have been one of them-- _would have been_ , a long time ago, if it hadn’t been for Hawke!” 

Whatever words Fenris had intended to say to argue with that, they died on his lips. He and Cato stared into each other’s eyes for a long minute. 

“ _Please_ , mom,” Cato said, quietly, but well aware that others in the room could hear. It didn’t matter what they thought. “I’m not leaving without them.” 

This time, Fenris’ sigh was one of defeat. “Then I have no choice.” Fenris pointed to the northern wall. “Someone burn a hole through that wall. We all need to get through it.” 

The older mages glanced at each other, and then one of them shrugged and began to burn through the wall. After a minute, there was a nice hole big enough for everyone present to walk through, and a different apprentice cast an ice spell to douse the now-unnecessary flames. 

Fenris led the way through the hole.

“Where is Hawke?” Cato asked, just a step behind Fenris. 

“Fighting,” Fenris said. “I will join him as soon as you are safe.” 

“But what _happened_?” 

Fenris shook his head. “It’s a long story. I will explain later.”

Several rooms over, Fenris uncovered and opened a tunnel that led underneath the Gallows. “Don’t go exploring,” Fenris said. “The structure is was fragile even before tonight, and there’s no telling what parts of it might be on the verge of caving in or have already done so. Just stay hidden and quiet and we will come get you when the fighting is over.” 

Maybe it was cowardly. Maybe Cato--and all of the apprentices--should have put his foot down and demanded to be allowed to join in the fighting for his own life. 

He didn’t do that. He crawled down into the tunnel. 

All of the other apprentices followed. The space was dark and even more crowded than the library had been. In time, the adrenaline rushes wore off, and a number of people began complaining of various injuries, but only the elven healers could see well enough down there to do anything about it. The older kids shot down the idea of using fire for light, because it might attract attention. They didn’t say whose. 

Cato and two girls spent hours tending to every injury they could in the darkness, keeping their patients as silent as possible. None of the injuries were terribly severe: a burned arm, a sprained ankle, but there were a lot of them. By the time Cato finished, he was low on mana and even lower on sleep, and he couldn’t have fought if he’d wanted to. 

He curled up on the floor, his stomach still flipping and clinching, and he let sleep overtake him. He hoped he’d wake up free. 

Failing that, he’d settle for waking up at all.


	14. Act 3 - Part 7

There was a scream, and someone stepped on Cato’s hand. 

Cato pulled his throbbing hand away and sat up, blinking as his eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. 

An eerie glow. A voice that was unnaturally deep. Flashes of light. 

Silence. 

Sobbing. Not Cato’s. Little kids crying. 

He sat up in the darkness for a moment, but things seemed to have gone back to normal. 

_One_ Abomination, and it was dead now. Fenris couldn’t be too mad about that. 

Cato wondered who it was--who it had been. 

He decided a moment later that he really didn’t want to know. 

He laid back down. He was asleep before all of the children had stopped crying.

~*~

It was Jem that woke Cato up, and pulled Cato all the way to his feet. 

“Come on,” he said. “The Champion’s here. He saved us. We’re getting out of here.” 

“Hawke?” Cato said. He didn’t walk toward the exit so much as allow himself to be pushed by the crowd. 

“Yeah,” Jem said. “They won! The Templars are dead and we... I don’t know what’s going to happen to us now, but the Templars are dead and we’re not.” 

“That’s what matters,” Cato said. 

“So you _can_ talk?” Clark said from somewhere behind Cato. 

Cato shrugged. “When I want to.” 

Cato couldn’t resist breaking through the line and hugging Hawke when he saw him. Hawke flinched at the contact, though. Broken ribs? Why hadn’t Anders healed him? 

“I am _so_ sorry,” Hawke said breathlessly. 

“For what?” Cato asked. “You saved us.” 

“You never would have been in danger if it hadn’t been for me!” Hawke said. 

Cato shook his head. “What happened?!” he repeated. 

“I will explain soon,” Hawke promised, “but not right now. You need to go find Fenris and get on a boat.” 

“On a boat?” Cato asked. 

“Yes,” Hawke said. “Everyone needs to get on a boat.” He gently shoved Cato back toward the crowd of apprentices. “Go. Find Fenris.” 

Cato didn’t know what to do except listen, so he followed the crowd out of the main gate of the Gallows, to where most of Hawke’s friends were loading mages onto the small boats used to ferry people to and from Kirkwall. 

Anders wasn’t among them. 

Neither was Sebastian. 

Cato found Fenris helping the smallest of the children step up into the boats, and Cato ran up behind Fenris and threw his arms around Fenris. 

Once the girl Fenris was helping had her footing inside the boat, Fenris turned around, and pulled Cato into a tight hug. “Thank the Maker that you’re alright,” he said. “Don’t ever do anything like that again.” 

“Hawke and I didn’t get captured by Templars on purpose, you know,” Cato said into Fenris’ chest. 

“Just don’t do it again.” 

Fenris let go of Cato, and Cato joined him in helping the children get onto the boat, until the boat was full. They would have to wait for the boat to come back and make multiple trips in order to get everyone. Isabela, Varric, Aveline, and Merrill went across with that first set of boats, to make sure that no one waiting at the docks got any bright ideas. 

Hawke returned from making a sweep of the Gallows, with Carver at his side. 

“Carver!” Cato said, waving. “I thought you were with the Grey Wardens!” 

Carver nodded down at his blue and bronze armor. “I took a quick leave of absence. My brother needed me.” 

Cato smiled. “So are you my uncle now?” 

Carver looked at Hawke and raised an eyebrow. “Am I? Apparently there’s a lot I haven’t been told.” 

“I--We’ve been busy!” Hawke said. “But yes. Congratulations. You’re an uncle.” 

“Awesome.” Carver held up a hand, and Cato high-fived him. “I’ll be a better one than Gamlen, I promise.” 

“I hope so,” Fenris said. “That’s a low bar.” 

Cato looked at the adults around him. “So will you tell me what happened now?” he asked. “Where are Anders and Sebastian?” 

Hawke sighed. 

Fenris summed it up before Hawke got his bearings: “You and Hawke were publicly arrested by the Templars. Word spread fast. I went with some of our friends to _discuss_ the matter with Knight-Commander Meredith,” Fenris’ voice indicated that talking was not really what he’d had in mind, “and we found her in the middle of an argument with the First Enchanter, the subject of which, I believe, was Hawke. Anders decided that the perfect solution to this was to blow up the Chantry and start a revolution.” 

Cato gasped. “Was Sebastian--” 

“He was with me,” Fenris said. “Many others were not so lucky, including the Grand Cleric. Sebastian took off after Anders in a rage. The rest of us might have gone after them, but in the same moment, the Knight-Commander ran the First Enchanter through and called for the Circle’s Annulment.”

Cato blinked. “So... So you just...” 

“You and Hawke had to be the priority,” Fenris said. 

“So now they’re just... _gone_?” Cato asked. 

“They are grown men who made their own decisions. I am sorry. We may see them again some day.” 

“Maybe,” Cato pouted. “ _If_ they ever come back to Kirkwall.” 

There was a long and deeply uncomfortable silence. 

“Cato,” Fenris said, “I know what we said last night, but things have changed. We have to leave.” 

“All of us,” Hawke said. “Together.” 

“But what about my friends?!” Cato asked. “I haven’t even said that I’m sorry to Lila yet, and--” 

“You can write to her, and tell her whatever you want to tell her,” Fenris said. “But we have to go. Now. We’re lucky that Knight-Captain Cullen is giving us the time that he is.” 

“What do you mean?” Cato asked. “I thought we won.” 

“We won the battle,” Fenris said. “Not the war. We’ve got until dawn to get every mage out of this city.” 

There was no arguing with that. It was better than the alternative, Cato supposed. He was too exhausted to cry about it or be properly mad. For a few short hours, it had looked like everything was going to be okay, and now they were going to have to leave Kirkwall, and Cato wasn't even going to get to say goodbye to his friends in the alienage. It hardly seemed real. 

At least they wouldn’t be going alone. 

It took two long hours for the boats to make enough trips to get everyone across the harbor, even with everyone packed in as tightly as they could get. It would have taken longer to walk it, though, especially with the little kids. 

Cato was able to heal Hawke’s broken ribs while they waited, but after that, it was boring. 

The last set of boats didn’t have as many people on them, so Cato had enough room to lay down on the floor and stare up at the stars. He noticed something, and he cast a wisp for light and pulled the pendant out of his pocket to compare the sky. The sapphires perfectly matched the stars on a constellation to the south. He wondered if that meant anything. 

He sat up and held it out to Fenris. “Do you know what this is?” 

Fenris’ eyes widened slightly. “You took that off of Danarius,” he said. 

“You and Hawke always loot bodies,” Cato pointed out. 

“I’m not angry,” Fenris said. He held out his hand, and Cato passed the pendant to Fenris, who studied it closely. “It’s his Birthright,” Fenris said. “It’s a family heirloom. A status symbol in Tevinter. All Altus families have them.” 

“Oh,” Cato said. “If you don’t want me to keep it--” 

“Did I say that?” Fenris asked. He handed the Birthright back to Cato. “Keep it, if you want it.” Fenris smiled. “You with a Magister’s Birthright and me with a Blade of Mercy. I like the irony.” 

Cato compared it to the stars again. “Do you know why it looks like that constellation?” 

Fenris glanced over his shoulder where Cato was indicating. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t. But I’m sure it’s no accident.” At Cato’s obvious disappointment with this answer, he added, “No doubt there’s a book out there that will explain it to you some day.” 

Cato smiled. Wherever they were going, there would be books. And probably drawing material, too. Cato wouldn’t be entirely bored, at least. 

Cato and Fenris were the last ones off their boat. Hawke and his other remaining friends were huddled in a circle, looking concerned. 

“We need a _ship_ ,” Isabela was saying as Cato and Fenris drew closer. “Something big and proper that can actually get these people out of here!” 

“Well, what do you want us to do, Rivaini?” Varric asked. “Pull one out of our asses? Steal one?” 

“Okay,” Hawke said. 

Everyone looked at him.

“I was kidding,” Varric said.

“I think we need what little good will we might have left with the people of Kirkwall,” Aveline agreed. 

Hawke sighed. “I think we need to weigh the consequences of doing this against the consequences of not doing it. We’ve got maybe an hour to get out of here.” He motioned for them to wait, and marched toward the largest ship in sight. 

“There are going to be guards on board,” Isabela said. “We should go help him.” 

“We’ll know if he needs us,” Fenris said. 

None of them moved. 

There was no fight, from what Cato saw. No flash of light, no crashes, not even loud yelling. After a few minutes, a handful of strangers simply _left_ the ship. 

Hawke followed them, and immediately began to load mages onto the ship. 

“That easy?” Isabela asked Hawke as their party boarded. “What did you do? Just politely inform them that you were stealing their ship and they all said ‘aye aye, thief,’ and got off?” 

“No,” Hawke said, “I very authoritatively explained that as the Champion of Kirkwall, I was _requisitioning_ this ship.” 

Isabela squinted at him. “Can you do that?” 

“Don’t encourage people to ask that question until we’re at sea.” 

Isabela laughed. 

“So?” Hawke said, smiling at Isabela. “I don’t know anything about sailing ships. Can you get us out of here?” 

Isabela looked around. “It won’t be easy with this crew... but I do like a challenge. Just tell me where we’re going.” 

Hawke didn’t have an answer for her. 

“Amaranthine,” Carver said. 

“Carver--” 

“Yes,” Carver said firmly, looking his brother in the eyes. “This is a stolen ship full of apostate mages. There’s only one person south of Tevinter who might be both able and _willing_ to help you, and I doubt this ship is supplied for a journey to Minrathous. I know Warden-Commander Surana. Not well, but I think she’ll help us. She’s our best chance, anyway.” 

Hawke nodded. 

“Aye, aye,” Isabela said with a salute. When she brought her hand down, she trailed it over Carver’s chest and smiled at him, then walked off to sail the ship. 

“What should the rest of us be doing?” Merrill asked. 

“Just help people get settled,” Hawke said. “I’m sure everyone is tired. Send anyone who’s injured and any apprentice who can heal to the same place and try to get everyone treated.” 

“What happened to the Enchanters who can heal?” Cato asked. 

The adults all looked at each other. 

“It’s always a good idea to go for the healers first in a fight,” Fenris said, and he left it at that. 

Cato found some space up on deck to be their makeshift hospital, and the others sent him people. The first dozen or so people were all injured Enchanters, but then a group of healer apprentices came to join Cato, and the work went faster, even as more injured Enchanters arrived. Cato the sun was shining bright in the sky, they were too far from Kirkwall to see its shores, and Cato felt like he was going to collapse at any moment. The healing wasn’t done, but one of the older apprentices told Cato that he had to stop and get some rest before he hurt himself. He’d been the first one up here, and there were enough apprentices to get the work finished. 

Cato asked Isabela where Fenris was, and Isabela pointed Cato toward the Captain’s Quarters. 

Hawke and Fenris were asleep in a large, comfortable bed. Cato crawled in next to Fenris and stubbornly wiggled until he had enough room to be comfortable. Rather than grunting or fighting back, Fenris half-opened one eye, and then pulled Cato in close. 

Cato fell asleep listening to his mother’s deep breathing.

~*~

Kissy noises. Ew. Cato almost preferred to be woken up by the sound of doors getting kicked in. 

Not really. 

At some point, Fenris and Hawke had gotten out of bed. At some point, Cato had stretched out and entirely taken over the bed. Cato had no idea which of these things had caused the other. 

“I’m sorry about all of this,” Hawke whispered, practically right into Fenris’ mouth. “You know I didn’t want to drag you and Cato into this fight...” 

Fenris shook his head. “I would follow you anywhere, Hawke.”

“That’s good,” Hawke said. “Because as long as I have you, I have everything I need.”

Hawke leaned down and kissed Fenris, on the lips. There might have even been tongue!

Cato scrunched up his face. “You two are gross.”

Fenris and Hawke both just chuckled. “This would never have happened without your encouragement,” Fenris pointed out. 

“Nnn,” Cato said. He didn’t really mean it. He was glad they were happy. He just wanted them to be happy with less tongue.

It felt normal, though. Safe. Master was dead and the Templars were dead, and for the first time, they weren’t being hunted. Cato wasn’t just living with some guy, he had a _mom_ and a... mom’s boyfriend. Whatever. He had a _family_. Even an uncle! 

“I’m going up on deck,” Cato said, kicking the blankets off. “Is there any breakfast?”

“In the Mess Hall,” Hawke said. “It’s breakfast or lunch or something.” 

Fenris made a gagging noise. “Two days of nothing to eat but broiled fish... We can’t get to Amaranthine soon enough...”

Cato giggled as he closed the door behind him, and he walked the short distance to the staircase and skipped up on deck. 

It was chillier on deck than Cato had expected. He wished he had his coat, or even Hawke’s jacket. What had happened to it? It seemed like a lifetime ago that he’d dropped it on the floor of the Gallows, though Cato knew it had been less than twenty-four hours. 

The prospect of leaving Lila and Carly and Corwin was more tolerable by daylight than it had been last night. He’d write to them, when they got to Amaranthine. Maybe he could even find some parchment and ink on the ship and begin the letter at sea, so that he could send it as soon as they they docked. (Well, maybe not _as soon as_. He doubted that finding a carrier pigeon would be at the top of Fenris and Hawke’s priority list when they docked. As soon as he could, anyway.) Lila would forgive Cato for what had happened with Danarius, and they would all forgive him for going away. They would have to. And Cato was sure he’d be going back to Kirkwall soon. How long could it possibly take Hawke to sort everything out, now that Knight-Commander Meredith was dead? 

Everything was going to be fine.

There were plenty of people up on deck, even though most of them were in mage robes and must have been just as cold as Cato was. Cato only recognized two of them: Isabela, who had found a very big hat somewhere on the ship and was now walking around in it and bossing people around with a smile on her face, despite the fact that she had probably had less sleep than anyone else on this ship, and Justin, who was curled up against some barrels. 

Justin had been good to Cato yesterday, and now he looked upset. Cato walked over and sat down next to him. “Good morning,” Cato said. 

“Morning,” Justin said. 

“You don’t look like you slept much,” Cato said honestly, studying his face. There were dark rings under his eyes that Cato didn’t remember being there yesterday. 

Justin shrugged. “I didn’t. I was on one of the mess benches, they’re not that comfortable, and between that and the boat rocking, and Amaranthine, I just couldn’t sleep.” 

“What’s wrong with Amaranthine?” Cato knew little of the city. Carver had been stationed there for a while, and it hadn’t killed him. That was about the extent of Cato’s knowledge, and even that limited information made it look like a better option than Kirkwall right now, friends or no friends. 

“Nothing’s wrong with Amaranthine,” Justin said, rolling his eyes. “I just... Were you scared, yesterday?” 

“Everyone was scared yesterday.” 

“Before that. In the dining hall, before everything went to the Void, you wouldn’t talk. Were you scared?” 

Cato thought about it for a few seconds, and then nodded. “Yeah. I guess I was. Don’t really know why.” 

“Yeah,” Justin said, “well, don’t tell anyone, but I’m scared of Amaranthine. I don’t remember the last time I was out of the Gallows. I mean, literally, _I don’t remember_. I don’t know what it’s like or... how to talk to people who aren’t mages.” 

“Just like you talk to mages, mostly,” Cato said. “Amaranthine’s probably more used to mages than most, because of the Grey Wardens. They have lots of mages, like Warden-Commander Surana!” 

Justin smiled. “The Templars banned all books about her, you know. They said she befriended blood mages, and that blood magic was instrumental in stopping the Blight.” 

“That’s not true,” Cato said. 

“Oh? You were there?” 

“No,” Cato admitted, though it wasn’t much of a confession. Cato was six years old during the Blight, and he’d been in the Free Marches for the entirety of it. Even if he had been there, he probably wouldn’t have known anything about blood magic or recognized it when he saw it. Anyway, Cato could barely remember the entire country of Antiva; Tevinter was nothing to him but scars on his arm and a language he taught his friends bad words in. If he forgot entire countries, he’d probably forget blood magic. “But why wouldn’t anyone but the Templars know that?” 

Justin shrugged. “The Templars are the ultimate authorities on blood magic, aren’t they?” 

“I dunno,” Cato said. “They probably just wanted you to hate the wardens so that you wouldn’t realize that it’s a better deal than being stuck in a tower your whole life and run off to join them.” 

“Is it, though?” Justin asked. He and Cato were both quiet for a few seconds, and then Justin shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. The Gallows are closed down and we’re going to meet the wardens. It’s happening whether we want it to or not.” 

“It’ll be okay,” Cato said. “Hawke is here. He’ll make everything okay. He always does.” 

“If you say so,” Justin said. “You know him, right? How?” 

Cato shrugged. “He taught me magic. And I guess he’s dating my mom now?” 

“Your... mom...?” Justin said, squinting at Cato. 

Cato’s face burned. “It’s... complicated.” He didn’t want to tell that story to Justin. He hadn’t even told it to Corwin yet! Cato barely had it straight in his own head. 

Justin accepted that with a shrug. He leaned back farther on the barrels and looked up at the sky. There was a cloud that looked a little bit like a mabari. “We’re gonna be alright, though? You’re sure?” 

“Yeah,” Cato said, trying to sound a lot more certain than he felt. “We’re gonna be alright.”


End file.
